To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/WxpLRqe6LDk
In this episode, Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry are joined by Dillon Winiecki of Protect Property Inspections in Arizona to discuss the growing demand for more detailed new-construction inspections. Dillon shares his journey from firefighter to home inspector, the growth of his company, and why changing consumer expectations present an opportunity for inspectors to provide greater value.
They also explore Arizona’s Registrar of Contractors (ROC) workmanship standards, warranty timelines, builder restrictions, inspection pricing, training, and how understanding state laws and construction standards can help inspectors better protect homeowners.
Here’s the link to Inspector Empire Builder: https://www.iebcoaching.com/events
Learn more about Dillon Winiecki and his team’s home inspection services in Arizona: https://ppi-az.com/
Follow Protect Property Inspections’ in-house social media influencer for new-construction inspection content and real-world inspection findings:
https://www.instagram.com/jonny.eagle.eye/
Takeaways
Dillon Winiecki began his home inspection career in 2018 after working as a professional firefighter.
Protect Property Inspections has 42 employees, including 24 inspectors, with new construction making up about 85% of its business.
Dillon founded the Inspection Career Training Academy to educate aspiring Arizona home inspectors and recruit new talent.
Changing consumer expectations create an opportunity for inspectors to provide greater value.
Home inspections have expanded to include specialized services, and detailed new-construction inspections are another evolution of the industry.
Arizona’s workmanship requirements provide specific standards and tolerances for documenting construction defects.
Protect Property Inspections includes Arizona ROC workmanship standards directly in its inspection reports.
Dillon believes workmanship standards should be included in comprehensive new-construction inspections rather than offered separately.
Warranty deadlines matter, with some defects requiring documentation before closing or within the first 10 days.
Cosmetic-looking issues can indicate improper installation, including nail pops, bowed walls, tile issues, and missing insulation.
Manufacturer requirements can help inspectors determine whether components were installed correctly.
Builder restrictions may limit access before closing, while inspections after closing may allow inspectors greater access.
Protect Property Inspections offers post-report support to help clients address repairs and navigate ROC complaints.
The company averages about $1,070 for detailed final-walk or 10-day inspections, compared with $850–$860 for typical resale inspections.
Specialized training is essential, with more than 57 training modules focused largely on new construction.
Inspectors should research their state laws, warranties, building standards, and manufacturer requirements.
Detailed inspections can help builders catch workmanship problems earlier, when repairs may be easier and less expensive.
The key takeaway: Detailed new-construction inspections can provide greater value and protection by using clear standards, warranty requirements, and strong documentation.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Welcome to the Show
01:30 Introducing Dillon Winiecki
02:11 Inspector Empire Builder and AI Tools
04:02 Dillon’s Journey From Firefighter to Home Inspector
07:00 Growing Protect Property Inspections
08:41 Starting the Inspection Career Training Academy
14:06 The Shift Toward More Detailed New-Construction Inspections
17:48 Changing Consumer Expectations in Home Inspections
19:26 Why Detailed Inspections Are an Opportunity
21:01 Arizona’s Workmanship Laws and Standards
23:25 Protecting and Empowering New-Construction Homeowners
24:01 Giving Inspection Reports More “Teeth”
26:44 Combining Standard and Workmanship Inspections
29:48 Understanding the Arizona Registrar of Contractors (ROC)
31:18 Cosmetic Issues vs. Installation Defects
37:11 Builder Restrictions and Inspection Limitations
39:13 Post-Report Support and Warranty Claims
41:25 Pricing Detailed New-Construction Inspections
44:56 Training Inspectors on Workmanship Requirements
45:48 New Construction as 85% of Dillon’s Business
47:19 Researching State Laws and Warranty Protections
48:45 How Detailed Inspections Can Improve Construction Quality
52:08 The Future of Detailed New-Construction Inspections
52:45 Where to Find Dillon Winiecki
53:37 Closing Thoughts
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 (00:00.95)
Welcome back to the show. Tessa, all right. I already know how sunny Florida’s doing. I can tell you my experience. All right. I was I was in Orlando last week and I basically didn’t yeah, but I didn’t leave the airport. I stayed at the the Hyatt they got at the hotel. It was a volunteer event. I was there for like two days. Basically hardly saw any sunlight. I had the weirdest view from my balcony.
Tessa Murry (00:08.856)
you
Tessa Murry (00:14.656)
you were? Okay.
Tessa Murry (00:22.209)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (00:28.588)
I love you. I love you.
Reuben Saltzman (00:30.476)
Which was locked, I was looking at the check-in line. It was so weird. It you know, it was it was entertaining, it was a change in scenery, but I did step outside briefly, very briefly, just to see if the pool had a hot tub at night because I was cold from being air conditioned all day. I stepped outside and it was like a punch in the face. I could not believe that humidity. I mean, that was something else. Yeah, so.
Tessa Murry (00:35.16)
That sounds miserable, Ruben.
Tessa Murry (00:39.438)
you
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (00:50.1)
okay.
Thank
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Sounds about right. It’s pretty awful. And you know, it’s funny because technically we’re recording this at September, beginning of September. in my mind, growing up in Midwest, I’m like, yeah, the leaves start changing colors, it gets cool out, there’s a nice crisp breeze, I can start drinking warm things. Down here, it’s it’s 100 degrees and the humidity, the dew points like 77.
80, like you’re, you go outside and you’re just instantly just sweating. There’s no relief. No relief from the heat. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (01:30.604)
It’s relentless. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we got we got someone else on the show today who gets to deal with his own kind of heat. He’s got the desert heat going on. from Arizona. We got Dylan Winneki. Dylan, I’m gonna mispronounce your last name. I’d even ask you about the pronunciation. Is it Winneki? Winnekee. Thank you. All right.
Tessa Murry (01:42.606)
Thank
Tessa Murry (01:50.03)
you
Dillon Winiecki (01:51.062)
Okay, yeah, Winnicki. Winnicke. Easy Polish name, you know. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (01:53.343)
RINICKEY
There we go. Lots of confidence.
Reuben Saltzman (01:56.974)
All right. Dylan Winneke. Dylan, welcome to the show. How you doing today, sir?
Dillon Winiecki (02:02.488)
Doing great. Yeah, looking forward to this. I’ve listened to you for years, man. It’s pretty cool to be on. So Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (02:07.828)
Aw, you’re such a sweetheart.
Tessa Murry (02:08.628)
Awesome.
Reuben Saltzman (02:11.703)
Well, Dylan and I have known each other for quite some time now. We’re both members of IEB, Inspector Empire Builder. That’s where we met. And I and I since I’m talking about that, I’m just gonna do my little commercial for IEB right now. Dylan, were you on the call when we were talking about Claude in Chrome? Okay. All right. So, you know, we do these weekly calls.
Dillon Winiecki (02:36.92)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (02:41.085)
And we had someone talk about Claude in Chrome. It’s this new AI tool. And my mind is still absolutely blown. They didn’t completely talk about what this could do, but I started playing around with it. And this is way above and beyond what I thought was even possible today. It’s like instead of the AI giving you the information you want, it will actually do the work for you. Like you
Tell it I want you to make me a spreadsheet that does this and this and this, and it’ll make you a spreadsheet. I I say I want you to change this on my website, it’ll change it on my website. I mean, mind blowing. And if I wasn’t in IEB learning these things week in and week out, I just feel like I where would I learn this? I don’t know where I’d learn this. Dylan, what what what do you think about all that? I mean w
Tessa Murry (03:22.68)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (03:33.101)
No.
Dillon Winiecki (03:35.416)
Hundred percent. Yeah. And especially because it’s industry specific, you know, like all these things you could go learn it somewhere, but it may not really be applicable to us. So then you have a hard time putting it together. But it’s industry specific and you’re you’re chatting with other owners and leaders in our industry and it’s just a game changer, man. It’s a game changer. I my I’m a completely different person and business owner and and inspector and because of IB, hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (03:46.956)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (03:52.951)
Yes. Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (04:02.869)
Love it. All right. That’s as good as commercial as we could possibly give. if you want more information, we’ll have a link to Inspector Empire Builder in the show notes. But Dylan, now we got that out of the way, let’s talk about you, my friend. wondering if you could give me the the intro who you are, how you got here today. You’re running a huge home inspection company. You started it like six months ago. No, just kidding.
Dillon Winiecki (04:06.836)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (04:07.17)
Just kidding.
Reuben Saltzman (04:31.349)
A little more than that. But I mean, compared to how long I’ve been doing this, I mean, your growth has just been, I mean, you got like the hockey stick model going up and to the right. tell me how how did you get into home inspections and how did you get to where you are today? Give me the whole story.
Dillon Winiecki (04:31.876)
Feels like it. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (04:43.544)
Yeah, yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (04:48.888)
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So in two thousand twelve, I became a professional firefighter. That was kind of my my dream as a kid, you know, like so many others. And my dad did it, my grandpa did it. So it just kind of felt natural that that that’s where I was headed. And and so I got hired and I was twenty two years old, didn’t didn’t really know much about life yet. And and yeah, just just started doing that. And most firemen get side jobs or start side businesses. And so
Tessa Murry (04:58.35)
Thanks
Tessa Murry (05:03.48)
Hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (05:17.726)
one of my friends who was a fireman, he he started doing home inspections. I started seeing how successful he was and you know, one of my side jobs as a fireman was construction and all kinds of different construction. And so I was like, man, I don’t really want to do that, but I would like to leverage that knowledge, the little bit of knowledge I had. So anyways, went to the schooling here in here in Arizona. It’s a licensed state, so how to go through a school and and
School was pretty good. I definitely thought it could be better, right? Which we’ll talk about. I actually started my own school because of that, which is cool. I can help help inspectors get licensed now, which super challenging endeavor, but it’s it’s awesome and it’s be been a huge blessing to our company. But but yeah, just since since then I I guess became an inspector in two thousand eighteen. And because I was still a firefighter, I had to really start hiring quickly. I mean, I’d get off of shift,
You know, with little to no sleep and 118 degrees, you’re hot, you’re tired, and it was like I’d have to go inspect houses all day. And so it was like immediately I was looking to hire. So, hired my first inspector. Basically that first year I was in business and it was a game changer. I realized already, I’m like, Man, this is nice, you know. So, but yeah, had really no formal training in in running a business, hiring training, leading, you know.
Reuben Saltzman (06:19.757)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (06:20.139)
Oof.
Tessa Murry (06:33.463)
Heh.
Dillon Winiecki (06:41.802)
And so it’s just been it’s just been nuts ever since. Yeah. Two thousand eighteen is when I became an inspector. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (06:43.598)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (06:45.803)
And and how long ago was that? That you hired your first person? Okay. All right.
Tessa Murry (06:46.306)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (06:51.726)
Eight years ago. And today, what’s the name of your company and how big is it? How many inspectors do you have?
Dillon Winiecki (07:00.846)
Yeah, so today it’s Protect Property Inspections. we’re located in Phoenix, Arizona here and kind of go all over Arizona. we have 42 employees, 24 of them are inspectors, another, you know, maybe dozen independent contractors that help us with some different things. we have a separate commercial company called Arizona Commercial Property Inspections. It goes all over Arizona and a little bit out of Arizona every now and then.
Tessa Murry (07:13.592)
So.
Reuben Saltzman (07:19.287)
Crazy.
Dillon Winiecki (07:28.735)
And and then we have the school inspection career training academy.
Tessa Murry (07:32.402)
Wow, you have been a busy guy, Dylan. And do you still do firefighting then? I mean, is that… do?
Reuben Saltzman (07:32.525)
Inspection Career Training Academy, I C T A.
Dillon Winiecki (07:42.338)
Unfortunately no. I I had an injury that forced me into an early retirement at fourteen years. So didn’t quite make it to the thirty four that my dad did. So yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (07:51.479)
Wow. Wow. So now inspection became your bread and butter here. Took over your life. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (07:56.034)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. A t I tore my hip and it was one of those where I could get surgery or I could I could make my way out. So I I rehabbed it back and actually got back on the fire truck for two more years and then it just it kept getting worse. I kept re injuring and so it was one of those where I just decided I’m pretty young. I have a great opportunity here with my company and I would just part ways. So
Reuben Saltzman (07:57.848)
Was it was this a work injury?
Reuben Saltzman (08:08.054)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (08:15.365)
Tessa Murry (08:24.183)
I’m into that.
Dillon Winiecki (08:24.418)
I can live with the tear that I have until I’m gonna probably be forced to get some type of replacement down the road, which is a little bit more of a stable type of surgery and procedure. So
Reuben Saltzman (08:35.565)
Sure. Sure. Okay.
Tessa Murry (08:35.86)
Yeah. Yeah. And when did you start your, what’s your training academy called? And when did you start that?
Dillon Winiecki (08:41.912)
Yep, inspection career training academy. We started that in twenty two, I believe. And started out really doing in person classes, was very passionate about the in-person. Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the nation. And there the class that’s the the school I went to was the only in person school, and it was like an hour and a half away from my house. So I wanted to start one on kind of our side of town and and like I said, kind of learn from what I took from that school.
Tessa Murry (08:47.586)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (09:02.531)
Bye.
Dillon Winiecki (09:09.84)
And try to do something a little better, a little bit different. kind of really compete with that school. And after COVID, the other schools all went online. So yeah, just was great. And hired a bunch of inspectors to be trainers from different companies, which was cool because then we I started collaborating with a lot of other people in the industry and have just made some of the best connections you could ever imagine through the school. So cool. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (09:19.778)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (09:28.504)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (09:34.284)
I bet.
Tessa Murry (09:34.484)
that’s great. So you still do mainly in-person classes, it sounds like, for-
Dillon Winiecki (09:40.344)
We actually shut that down about two years ago when Protect property inspections kind of exploded into the new construction, which is, you know, kind of a good segue for our topic here. Yeah. So we do we do online now. and we’re we’re still working through that, the the the IT side of that. It’s it’s challenging, but we do have online, yeah.
Tessa Murry (09:42.924)
Okay. Okay.
Tessa Murry (09:49.496)
Gotcha. Okay. Perfect.
Reuben Saltzman (09:52.107)
Yes, yes.
Tessa Murry (10:01.079)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (10:03.117)
All right, but Tessa, before we get into the new construction, I mean that’s the main thing I want to talk about today, but I I do want to ask you a little bit more about the school. So you’re doing online. Is it is it live online or is it asynchronous?
Dillon Winiecki (10:18.25)
It’s asynchronous. Yeah, they basically log in. There is a ton of video, a ton of that to lead lead them through, but it kind of automatically leads the student through. and yeah, we’ve gotten really good results with it. How I judge it is how well they do on the national exam. And everybody does really well on that national exam after our school. So we did build a test prep. Yep. We built a test prep class with a lot of feedback we were getting from students.
Reuben Saltzman (10:36.525)
Well, that’s great.
Tessa Murry (10:37.347)
Right.
Dillon Winiecki (10:42.616)
and some of the changes that were made. We went and took the tests ourselves and kind of got some more understanding of what’s on it and that kind of thing. So, and then here you have to do 30 what they called parallel inspections, which are ride-alongs with a licensed inspector. That’s that’s really the field training, right? When people are like, I really would prefer in person. I’m like, Look, the online is to help you pass the test. Let’s get that out of the way. Then we’ll go teach you how to become a home inspector, right?
and that’s where those 30 ride-alongs are. They have to write 30 reports. so we give them free software, we give them templates and lead them through everything. And and what it’s really become the most exciting thing that I’ve found, and I wish I could say I planned it this way because I didn’t, but it’s become this recruiting platform. and I’ve just gotten some of the best people you would imagine in my company, not just inspectors, I’m talking leaders.
Tessa Murry (11:13.72)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:24.974)
Just…
Tessa Murry (11:28.749)
Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (11:35.426)
I’m talking high level executive like there we have amazing people because of the school. One hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:41.964)
That’s cool.
Reuben Saltzman (11:43.948)
Love that. Tessa, we we we talked about this back in the day. I mean, we came close to starting a home inspection school ourselves for exactly that reason. I mean, you know, of course, I love teaching, and that’s that’s our core value, is we’re an education company. But I mean, just the idea of being able to recruit the best people in every class. I mean, man, we were gushy about that idea. Remember that, Tess?
Tessa Murry (11:45.134)
Do you keep? I know.
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:56.206)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (12:00.305)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (12:07.34)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I do. do. Things have changed so much in the last five years though, Ruben, too. I’m just thinking with AI and, you know, everything. would start it now because you can just use Claude, it sounds like.
Dillon Winiecki (12:23.138)
Yeah. Probably probably p make a pretty good product, yeah, for sure. We do we have hey gen, we get heygen involved a little bit. We we have avatar teachers and stuff and yeah. So it’s it’s pretty cool. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (12:29.11)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (12:29.44)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (12:35.66)
Wow. It’s a whole different world. Yeah. So do you get people from around the country then or is it mainly to people from Arizona because of the Arizona specific credentialing requirements and licensing?
Reuben Saltzman (12:37.527)
Super cool.
Dillon Winiecki (12:48.542)
It yeah, Arizona specific right now. We do do some different ancillaries that I’m I’m trying to kind of push out to the world of home inspection a little bit. So there are some online classes for some ancillary inspections that we want to get out. but yeah, up to this point it’s really just been Arizona. we did do some connecting with C C PIA over there on the commercial side of things. Rob Klaus, great guy, great, great program.
Tessa Murry (13:05.526)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (13:14.292)
and I’ve hosted some classes over here for them, some field classes. I’ve actually done some teaching for them, which has been really cool, really an honor. and it’s really that’s really taught me a lot about commercial was trying to teach it, right? trying to be an educator. I mean, best way to learn something is go teach it, right? and so yeah, that that was really cool. Now that we had people from Canada, we had people from Virginia. It was really cool.
Tessa Murry (13:28.418)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (13:33.272)
for sure.
Dillon Winiecki (13:41.022)
a dream of mine is to really have some type of house of horrors or something here in Arizona, specifically new construction where people would come from all over the nation to come learn more about why we’re doing what we’re doing here. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (13:51.093)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (13:52.564)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (13:54.382)
Well y you will probably do it. I have no doubt in you.
Tessa Murry (13:56.759)
Yeah. In the next year, probably. It’s the way that you move through. Do things. That’s awesome.
Dillon Winiecki (14:00.407)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (14:06.967)
Well, so Dylan, the the big thing I want to talk about is new construction. you you got an idea what I want to talk about already. And you know, just to just to lay the groundwork for anybody who hasn’t listened to like our last five episodes, we’ve been on kind of a kick here. Is that we we’ve noticed a shift in consumer expectations when we’re doing inspections on new homes. People are expecting us.
To talk about little scratches in the wall and these cosmetic imperfections. And it never used to be this way. And I’ve started to notice a lot of videos, a lot of reels from other home inspectors, mostly it seems from Arizona, getting super nitpicky about all these little details. And I think it’s shifting consumer expectations on what a home inspector does.
And so that that’s that’s a kick we’ve been on. And I know that you’re doing a ton of these new construction inspections. And you you we we had Andrew Harshman on the show. That was our last episode. And he was talking about how this has forced their business to change and they’re doing a lot of well, what what do we call it? What what what did they call those? It was a
Tessa Murry (15:31.067)
he- they had a name and I can’t workmanship standing. Okay.
Dillon Winiecki (15:31.876)
Workmanship, they call workmanship standard inspection.
Reuben Saltzman (15:34.498)
Work workmanship standard inspection. Okay. So that that’s kind of laying the groundwork. Dylan, I want to turn it over to you. Correct anything I’ve said that’s wrong. And t if you would tell a story for me. Where where did this all start? What’s going on in Arizona and why you guys screwing things up for all the rest of us? No, not really, but tell me a story.
Dillon Winiecki (15:43.758)
Yeah. No, yeah.
Tessa Murry (15:46.125)
you
Tessa Murry (15:50.542)
Thank
Dillon Winiecki (15:50.628)
I’m so glad I’m so glad you want a story.
Dillon Winiecki (15:57.89)
I I planned on telling a story, so I’m so excited that you asked for that. So let me set the tone with this and I will tell a story, but let me set the tone with this because I I think this is this is huge, right? This is huge. How long have you been a home inspector? How long have you been inspecting? When what year did you start?
Tessa Murry (16:03.054)
you
Reuben Saltzman (16:16.373)
I I started with structure tech answering phones in ninety seven, started doing the actual home inspections in two thousand four.
Dillon Winiecki (16:23.2)
Okay, okay, all right. So over twenty years. So and and what inspection services other than just a base home inspection were you doing back then? What ancillaries? Radon was the one. Okay. Makes sense. Basements, everything.
Reuben Saltzman (16:33.579)
Radon. Radon. That was it. Yep. And and we did it ourselves, man. We had these little pucks, these little canisters, and we would bring them back to our office. We call it we’d bring them back to the lab. And we had this lead pig, we called it. It was stacked blocks of lead. Each one weighed about a hundred pounds, I swear. And we would actually test these pucks.
Dillon Winiecki (16:50.944)
yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (17:03.329)
that we put in houses and each test would take over forty minutes to run for one house. And I don’t know we didn’t make any money. It was like it was just a hassle. But we did radon.
Dillon Winiecki (17:15.394)
I love it. I love it.
Tessa Murry (17:16.216)
remember hearing about that at all, Ruben. What years was that, the process? my god.
Reuben Saltzman (17:21.933)
that was when my dad bought the business in ninety-seven. We were doing in house radon testing. We had our own lab and we did that until we bought our first Corentium Pro monitors, the 1020 or the Sun no, this no, not Correntium, Sun Nuclear, the Sun Nuclear Ten Twenty Seven. And whenever we bought those is when we stopped doing it that way. And my goodness, what a game changer that was. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (17:30.872)
That’s crazy.
Tessa Murry (17:35.079)
Yeah. It’s… It’s on nuclear. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (17:42.178)
I love it.
Tessa Murry (17:46.764)
Wow. Game changer. Mm-hmm. Wow.
Dillon Winiecki (17:48.898)
I love it. I love it. And so, you know, back to the the consumer expectation has changed, right? Like now, Ruben, because I know this about you, what services do you offer now?
Reuben Saltzman (18:01.334)
we do everything, man. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (18:03.234)
Yeah, sewer scopes, thermal imaging, drones, right? Like everything. Right. Yes, yes. So to me, for everybody who’s listening, like this isn’t new. This isn’t new that our industry, that the consumer, first of all, the general public started deciding like we want more.
Tessa Murry (18:07.092)
mold.
Reuben Saltzman (18:07.447)
Yes, yes, yes. Chimney inspections, stucco testing, like go on. Yeah, we do a lot.
Dillon Winiecki (18:26.924)
Right. Like there’s more to this. We want a more valuable view of the home. We want more information. We want to be more empowered. We want a report that gives more information that looks behind and under and through things that we never had before. This isn’t new. It’s been happening your whole career, right? It’s not new for anybody. This is just that social media has just highlighted a little bit. But in my opinion, this is just a new opportunity for everybody. And if we looked at it that way.
Instead of a nuisance or a nitpicky or a or a you know the negative side of things that a lot of our inspectors out there are are giving it. And and I hear a ton of it by the way, right? Like it’s it’s all over. It’s in IGO, it’s in IEB. Like people are like, man, these people’s expectations are just nuts, you know? And it’s like, well, they were probably nuts when they wanted us to start doing thermal imaging. We probably felt that way a little bit, right? And sewers, everything else, like, but we started doing it.
Tessa Murry (18:58.763)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (19:22.125)
Sure.
Tessa Murry (19:23.221)
Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (19:26.016)
It it it we you either got with the times or you didn’t and you ain’t in business. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the way I see it. So just I think this a good way to like set the mindset or or reframe the way we’re seeing this. Let’s look at it as an opportunity a little bit. And that’ll tell my story. So so basically, I was doing inspections and we all know what happened in interest rates end of twenty twenty three, right? So I had eight inspectors at the time.
Reuben Saltzman (19:30.603)
Or you get left behind, right? Yeah.
Tessa Murry (19:32.598)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (19:45.505)
Sure. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (19:54.061)
Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (19:55.904)
And I’m like, man, I’m I’m not I wasn’t a great marketer, right? I’m like, what do I do? You know? And we had been doing a lot of new construction and I was seeing, you know, Cyporter’s videos and all the new construction, all those types of things that were going on. And I’m like,
Reuben Saltzman (20:10.635)
And and hold on, let’s just pause for a quick second. Who’s Cyporter?
Dillon Winiecki (20:13.346)
Yeah. Cyporter is an Arizona home inspector who I mean started actually has a a long list of even family in home inspections. His dad, I think his brother, his his wife’s family was even in home inspections. Like he’s deep, right? and
Reuben Saltzman (20:29.606)
wow. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (20:33.12)
started his own thing and and really got into new construction much like I did. That’s actually really how I got started because I didn’t know any real estate agents in in the Phoenix area. I was from Flagstaff, two hours north. And so I just started passing out flyers around new construction. And I cared so much. Let me tell you, I cared so much about new construction, but I didn’t even know that Arizona had these laws. And I I want to make sure that’s very clear that these are laws. These are statutes. This is
Tessa Murry (20:45.474)
you
Dillon Winiecki (21:01.56)
This is not just a guide or a a recommendation like some states have, right? I can’t wait to talk about Minnesota because I did some digging last night on what Minnesota’s laws are. It’s pretty cool, actually. But yeah, so so I just I cared a lot and I got into new construction and that was a large part of our volume. It just always has been. We we would kind of get into a neighborhood and it was like through referral, we would do the entire neighborhood. And it was like, wow, this is great. but
My new construction inspector, Tina, she was also my first employee, she fell out of an attic in 2023 and broke her leg. And I’m like, man, what are we gonna do? Yeah, what are we gonna do? And so to to give her something to do and make some money and stay up, she she started building us a template that would basically use this ROC standard, minimum workmanship standards that that Andrew showed you guys. She built it into a template for us.
Tessa Murry (21:39.402)
Reuben Saltzman (21:40.332)
Yikes.
Tessa Murry (21:43.475)
Oof.
Tessa Murry (21:58.147)
Yep.
Dillon Winiecki (22:00.164)
version one, terrible. We had to redo it, right? You know how that goes. but I was still in the field at the time. So I started testing it and giving her feedback and we made some changes to it. And we just kind of went all in. It was kind of my strategy for 2024 was we’re gonna do, we’re gonna go hard into new construction and really try to learn these standards, train all the inspectors, all of that. And through that, I was I was I could not go anywhere without hearing the name Cyporter.
Tessa Murry (22:03.342)
Yep.
Dillon Winiecki (22:28.214)
So I would, you know, I reached out to him and kind of connected with him a little bit, tried to learn as much as I could from him. And you know, we started kind of sharing information and sharing leads and sharing clients. And it just the rest, the rest is history. We just, we just do a ton of new construction. there’s a couple other influencers in Arizona that have kind of done done the same thing, like really leveraged the new construction standards and and voicing them and what they’re finding. And they’ve
Tessa Murry (22:46.456)
Hmph.
Dillon Winiecki (22:55.992)
Gotten a pretty good following on social media too. One of them’s actually one of my employees. And in less than a year, he’s already monetized and doing great on social media. Check out Johnny Eagle Eye. He’s he’s doing good. But but yeah, I get it. When people see that from not in Arizona or from outside of Arizona, they’re like, What is going on over there? Right. And so, it’s it’s yeah, it’s just been it’s just been kind of crazy. But that’s really the story. And
Reuben Saltzman (23:05.697)
Man. Okay.
Tessa Murry (23:08.256)
no.
Tessa Murry (23:18.509)
Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (23:25.634)
Yeah, super thankful for it. Thankful for we have that in the it we have that in this state. And we have been able to I’ll tell you what, as a firefighter for fourteen years, I truly believe I’ve helped more people as a new construction inspector than I than I was as a fireman. It’s it’s actually yeah, I truly.
Reuben Saltzman (23:41.249)
Really? Wow.
Tessa Murry (23:42.424)
So, wow.
Reuben Saltzman (23:44.663)
Super cool. Yeah, you’re you’re educating them.
Dillon Winiecki (23:47.649)
Absolutely. You’re really more than that, you’re empowering them, right? Because the way we write our reports is actually has some teeth to it. It actually forces the builder to make repairs. You know? Yeah, beautiful. Good question. So we actually take that, we took that document and we embedded the actual language and verbiage into our report. And so I’ll give you a good example.
Tessa Murry (23:58.543)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (24:01.889)
How does that work?
Dillon Winiecki (24:15.298)
When a h a home inspector around the country sees a flashing issue on a roof, they just say, flashing issue, recommend further evaluation by a roofer and repairs as needed, or something, something like that, right? Further evaluation, right? We’re professional turdpassers. I like to say. So we do it a little bit differently. We say there’s a flashing issue, the builder needs to correct it. And here’s why. Here’s the verbiage from the Arizona minimum standards workmanship laws that say.
Tessa Murry (24:26.062)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (24:42.84)
The there is no tolerance for a flashing installed improperly, dented, not gonna, you know, shed water the way it should. Like there’s no tolerance for that. Right. Now the document does list tolerances. I know Andrew talked about some of those and he’s very correct on those. Like a house is not gonna be perfect, right? And we do, we do have to explain that to people. That is a challenge we have here too, right? Because there are people that have perfect expectations, right?
But yeah, and so the builder gets our report, and I’ll be honest, you would think the builders would hate us, but they don’t because they actually understand most of them, not all of them, most of them understand that just is how it is here, and they would rather have free QC through the client paying us than then then and and actually know what they’re required to repair and why, and it’s right in our document than have to go.
Tessa Murry (25:24.792)
in.
Reuben Saltzman (25:32.16)
Of course. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (25:39.245)
Wow.
Dillon Winiecki (25:40.472)
figure it out themselves or decipher it for themselves. Exactly. Exactly.
Tessa Murry (25:42.125)
You’re like the final punch list for the builder. Yeah. That’s crazy. What’s like an average length report then? I mean, I’m sure it depends on the house and the quality and the builder and that sort of thing. But in general, mean, because you’re looking at so many things and just getting down to minutiae. Like, what is a standard report? How long? What does it look like?
Dillon Winiecki (25:59.631)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (26:04.9)
We we we don’t I we don’t do the old page numbers because we do use Spectora currently. And so but but if we printed them out it would be you know over a hundred probably. It’s we go by defects. So when we’re doing quality control on our reports, we we’re looking for like 65 to 85 inspection callouts. So it’s it’s a lot. And a lot of those are combined, like we’ve tried to shorten that up. Like there’s about four different paint defect call-outs in the RLC.
Tessa Murry (26:11.118)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (26:15.761)
Reuben Saltzman (26:15.981)
go out.
Tessa Murry (26:24.792)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (26:33.41)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (26:34.488)
We’ve turned that into one, right? It’s like there’s a paint issue. Here’s some check boxes. The inspector can check the boxes and and then it’ll it’ll outline that verbiage from RLC.
Tessa Murry (26:42.071)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (26:44.725)
And and for these inspections, I mean, I know when we did the podcast last week, Andrew said they got two inspections, you know, either you got your standard home inspection or you got the builder workmanship inspection or whatever. What what about you guys? Do you do the same thing? Do you call it something different? How’s that work?
Tessa Murry (26:45.207)
Hello.
Dillon Winiecki (27:01.676)
No, no, man. I I personally believe and and I by the way, let me start by saying I love Andrew Harshman, man. Love that guy. It’s a friend of mine. Respect him very, very much. I’m gonna pick on him a little bit. And that’s he’ll love that because he would do the same to me. but no, we don’t we don’t do that. And you know, when a couple other companies started doing that, I actually met with their people and said, I I I think that’s misleading, and I’ll tell you why.
There is no other inspection an Arizona client needs. You should not be offering them. Like to me, you’re doing a disservice, giving them an option. And I’ll I’ll tell you a story about why. I have a I have a good story for you that will go into that. you want me to tell it? All right. All right. All right. So we’re gonna we’re gonna go on an inspection in the field in Arizona. Okay. So Ruben, you’re the inspector, all right.
Reuben Saltzman (27:45.975)
Yeah, please. Yeah. We’re here to tell stories, baby.
Tessa Murry (27:46.86)
Yeah. Yeah.
you
Dillon Winiecki (27:58.713)
So once upon a time, Reuben was on an inspection in Arizona. It was 118 degrees. All right. You knock on the door of a one year warranty inspection, house is one year old, and a twenty-seven year old woman pregnant opens the door and she’s got a little toddler holding her hand. And you well, you know, she welcomes you in and everything, and and she apologizes.
Really, you don’t even know why she’s apologizing to you. She’s just a nice woman, you know. And you come in and she’s just exhausted. You can just tell. And she begins to tell you about how hard the last year has been. Right. Her husband’s actually overseas and she’s been dealing with this all on her own. And it’s just the hardest thing she’s ever done. And this giant builder is just raking her over the coals, right? And she got a a final inspection. She got a closing inspection.
Reuben Saltzman (28:47.885)
Hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (28:54.808)
By Andrew Harshman, right? Totally, totally did not happen. But this is a true story, but not Andrew Harshman. Well, we’re gonna pick on him a little Okay. So you’re like, okay, you know, we’re gonna help you out. Like, let’s get going, let’s start doing an inspection. So she says, Yeah, you know, he he had offered me two different inspections, and because like my husband wasn’t here, like my
My teammate decision maker wasn’t here. And so like I just kind of went with what I thought was best, and I kind of went with what was cheaper. And so I just got the regular Arizona SOP home inspection, right? And so they came and did it. Okay. So here’s the problem. Everything that there’s there’s several things that have to be found either pre-close or during the first 10 days. I know Andrew talked about that, for the builder to be required to repair them.
Reuben Saltzman (29:48.161)
Okay.
Dillon Winiecki (29:48.355)
And so now you just basically screwed that client if you didn’t offer them an ROC inspection or we call them ROC inspections or workmanship inspection. If you didn’t really ROC is register of contractors, yeah. So that’s the governing body of licensed contractors in Arizona. So if you’re a big builder, big corporate builder out of Texas or wherever they’re all from, but you operate in Arizona, you have to have a license here. And that’s governed by the ROC. So that’s who makes that guide.
Reuben Saltzman (29:58.604)
What what is ROC?
Reuben Saltzman (30:05.686)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (30:12.961)
Okay.
Dillon Winiecki (30:17.55)
See where I’m going with this already in this story? Okay. Mm-hmm. So anyway, she chooses the cheaper one and she’s like, well, Andrew found like, you know, GFI’s not working correctly, like, because that’s part of the SOP. Like, you’re gonna find that, right? Andrew’s a good inspector, like he does care. Most inspectors in Arizona are good inspectors. They do care, right? And and she all he also found a plumbing drain that was leaking under because we overwhelm drains and we find them, right? That’s part of regular inspection.
Reuben Saltzman (30:19.691)
Yeah. Yeah, I see where it’s going.
Dillon Winiecki (30:48.284)
but there’s gonna be some things he didn’t find that we’re going to. And you see how that starts to create an issue for our industry, even locally, right? We don’t want to say bad things about each other. Like we don’t want we all just want to be offering something similar. And and really, when I say similar, it’s whatever’s best to protect the client. That’s what we all want to do. That’s what that should be our why here. And so, anyways, she is crying and she’s not doing well, and we’re like, it’s gonna be okay.
Reuben Saltzman (30:56.461)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (31:18.062)
We’re we’re good. Okay. So we start our inspection. First thing we do is we look at the door, the front door. We open up the front door and and let me ask you something. Is this cosmetic or is this a manufactured required installation method? Okay. In your opinion, cosmetic or manufactured required? There’s no paint on top of the door and it’s an exterior door. What do you think?
Reuben Saltzman (31:39.167)
It says right on top of the door the paint is required.
Dillon Winiecki (31:42.361)
Very good, right? So some people around the country are like, cosmetic, nitpicky. It’s like actually in Arizona, it’s set there in the document it says exterior doors must be painted on all six surfaces, right? And also around the nation, we’re all installing the same doors, right? The builders are all installing the same doors. And they all have the stamp that says if you can see this stamp, it voids the warranty. So now she really starts crying because
Tessa Murry (31:42.742)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (32:08.535)
Yeah, yes.
Dillon Winiecki (32:11.714)
The front door is actually warped and it’s actually starting to delaminate a little bit because of the 120-degree weather. Because it wasn’t sealed on all six sides. And I say, calm, you know, I’m sorry, you, you’re the inspector Ruben. You’re like, calm down, calm down. I got, I’ll save the day. Check this out. Because they didn’t install that correctly, they are still on the hook for it. Make sense? Even if we didn’t find it during the 10-day.
Reuben Saltzman (32:18.101)
- Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (32:40.004)
If we find it during the two year and it can be proven that it was a manufacture required installation and they didn’t do it right from the get go, the builder’s still responsible for it. And in your state, you have the same thing.
Tessa Murry (32:49.24)
Thanks.
Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (32:53.324)
Exact same thing. Very cool. So back to the story. So because the inspector didn’t trust, you know, or she entrusted didn’t do that, it started to create some problems. Again, so we’re coming behind and we’re doing the best we can and not say anything bad about that inspector because we never want to do that, right? It it it’s hard. It’s really hard, but it puts us in a bad place. You go into the first bathroom because you’re doing your routine, you get to that first bathroom and you look and you see, you see a tub shower com combo.
Reuben Saltzman (32:54.177)
Yes, yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (33:22.634)
And it’s the three-piece fiberglass. And Andrew mentioned this. And you start doing the first thing you do because you were trained by Inspection Current Training Academy. You start shining your flashlight, looking for damage and cracks and issues with the fiberglass. And you find some significant cracking in the tub. And shoot, man, that’s not under warranty because any damage to manufactured surfaces has to be found during the first 10 days or pre-close to hold the builder accountable to it. But you got a trick up your sleep.
Reuben Saltzman (33:25.517)
Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (33:53.123)
And you take out that little measuring tool that Andrew Harshman had that we all think is so silly until you hear this story. And you put that and you take a picture of how they installed it wrong. They installed that tub shower combo incorrectly. So now you can hold them accountable to replace the tub that’s damaged with a new one that’s not. Pretty cool, right? Right? Manufacture required installation methods because there’s a 30
Reuben Saltzman (33:57.772)
Yes. Yes.
Tessa Murry (33:58.082)
in.
Reuben Saltzman (34:15.031)
Sure. Yep. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (34:16.11)
Mm.
Hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (34:22.304)
132nd of an inch tolerance there and it’s beyond that. They didn’t install it right. And I’m I’m telling you, Ruben, it could be an eighth. And as Home Inspectors, like, wow, that’s so picky around the nation. Nah, it’s so picky. I d you know, size putting credit cards in there. Johnny Eagle Eyes putting credit cards in there. It’s like, come on, man, you guys are being picky. No, you see why we’re doing it now. You see the the teeth we’re giving our report and the change we’re making in people’s lives, right? So a little bit more to the story.
Tessa Murry (34:25.742)
Thanks
Reuben Saltzman (34:27.17)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (34:38.656)
Bye.
Dillon Winiecki (34:52.45)
Get out of the bathroom, you go to the first bedroom, and you’re you’re being a nitpicky, you know, new build inspector in Arizona, and you’re shining your flashlight on the wall, and you get to a stud that has nails popping out of every the whole stud all the way up. And yes, I know they’re screws, but we call them nail pops. I don’t know if that’s normal around the yeah. So really the way we write that up is
Reuben Saltzman (35:11.371)
Yeah, whatever. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (35:19.2)
It wasn’t installed to manufacture required installation methods. And also the Gypsum Association says that’s a level two finish, which isn’t approved for an interior of a residence.
Reuben Saltzman (35:30.007)
Hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (35:31.737)
So in your state and in my state, it actually says that these things have to be installed to manufacture required installation methods. Your state has a state code, and part of that code has amendments. You know this, I’m just verbalizing it. Part of that code has amendments, and most of the amendments require they they literally say manufacture installation methods, trump or supersede, right? Which is pretty much everywhere.
Reuben Saltzman (35:56.824)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (36:01.508)
And so the level two finish actually requires the builder to make that repair as opposed to it just being cosmetic.
Reuben Saltzman (36:09.399)
Sure. Okay. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (36:10.766)
Difference, right? Right. And and by the way, yes, we use a flashlight, but like we’ve had houses that every stud had visible nail pops. Every stud. We’ve had houses that it looked like the boogeyman because all the paint dripped from the ceiling. It was like like it was like crazy paint. I mean, yes, it’s cosmetic, but it, you know, people pay are paying five, six hundred thousand a million dollars for this. And that’s the other thing to keep.
Reuben Saltzman (36:20.215)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (36:26.806)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (36:39.576)
Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (36:40.489)
Ruben, when you started this, how much was a house average, you think? What did it cost?
Reuben Saltzman (36:46.391)
Two fifty, three hundred thousand.
Dillon Winiecki (36:48.964)
Three times that. It’s three times that with way worse quality. I live in a 2002 house. I’m in it right now. Done some remodeling, but it’s built way better. The trusses are bigger, two by six construction, just built better, you know? So the stuff goes in great shape, actually.
Tessa Murry (36:49.314)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (37:08.882)
That’s great. On a two thousand two house. That’s fantastic.
Dillon Winiecki (37:11.416)
Yeah. Yeah. So a little bit more to the story though, you gotta go in the attic, right? And here’s where Andrews and many other inspectors that are offering it this way as a double service or as a basically as an add-on, this is where it really screws the client. Is the builder still owns the home before closing, obviously, right? And so they can impose limitations on the inspection company, which they do and we abide by them. But we here’s where we do give an option to the client. We say, hey.
Reuben Saltzman (37:38.006)
Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (37:41.313)
If you’re comfortable with it and if you’re, you know, willing to chance this, because really it’s like, are you willing to lose your earnest money or not? And if you’re not, it’s like, well, then have us come in after closing, during that 10 day, right? Because our inspection is just as good, if not better, because they can’t impose limitations on us. They tell us sometimes you can’t get on the roof, you can’t get in the attic, you can’t go behind the dead front, you can’t use tape, which is like, why would you not want us to show you where it is? Right? That’s kind of right. So
Reuben Saltzman (38:08.471)
Come on. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (38:09.078)
No, it’s crazy.
Dillon Winiecki (38:11.638)
No impose limitation.
Dillon Winiecki (38:16.142)
But because they don’t a lot of companies aren’t really understanding and really interpreting the law and really trying to use it to help their clients, they’re kind of screwing them in a way. Unintentional. I would never say Andrew would do that on purpose or any other inspector. It’s unintentional. And I know it because I did it. I loved a new bill, but I didn’t know about these laws. And I didn’t try to interpret them and I didn’t try to figure out a way to use them to really help my clients. Right. And so
That’s not good either. Well, one more thing you find though in that attic. There’s no insulation. None for an entire year. We have found that several times, Ruben. An entire year without insulation. How much more strain on that air conditioner? Right? How high was that electrical bill? And so we’ve actually helped clients. We actually have a we call it a post-report support specialist. I’ve actually hired
Tessa Murry (38:57.602)
you
Reuben Saltzman (38:59.906)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:00.654)
Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (39:13.462)
A person, he funny thing is he actually used to be a builder. He used to used to be a warranty rep, so he kind of knows like some of the schemes they pull. So he came over to the light side, I like to say, you know. And he actually was able to help these clients. Sometimes they’ll get their entire entire electrical bill reimbursed to them by the builder. Plus nice new fluffy installation. Yep. Yep. So tell me a home inspection company that couldn’t go do that. We all could be doing that.
Tessa Murry (39:17.058)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (39:31.415)
Sure.
Tessa Murry (39:32.11)
Whoa, yeah. Wow, wow.
Reuben Saltzman (39:34.945)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (39:42.915)
Now, not every state, right? Not every state, but like you have laws, you have statutory warranties, a one year, a two year, and a 10 year in your state. And you could be leveraging this and interpreting. There are some limitation comments in yours I saw that make it a little better for the builder, but you still could be. This is one of the biggest opportunities in home inspection. I truly.
Reuben Saltzman (39:43.149)
sure.
Reuben Saltzman (40:05.003)
Well, one of the things I’m digging into right now is I’m just and I I’ve got a guy on my team reaching out to builders right now to get an answer to this, but I’m just trying to figure out what standard our builders are even using. Because if you if you looked, it says the builder needs to provide a standard to the client. And I have no idea what builders are even doing in Minnesota. So
Dillon Winiecki (40:27.736)
Yeah, yeah. And most of them are their own, right? Most of them are their own. They all have corporate standards. Yeah. The they have corporate tolerances and everything. They love to tell you that the tile t the tile lippage tolerance is, you know, two, it’s an eighth, and it’s actually not an eighth anywhere that we can find. So what where we’ve gone is a step further into like associations. So I’ll give you an example. The Tile Council of North America.
Reuben Saltzman (40:31.402)
Is it?
Dillon Winiecki (40:54.894)
They have a very clear definition on tile lippage. It’s 132nd if the grout line is a certain width, and it’s one sixteenth if the grout line is a wider width. That’s it. 116th. And so these builders are like, no, they’ll be telling the clients, well, it’s one eighth, you know, so it’s within tolerance. I’ll tell you what, we get people new floors every week. Every single week. Completely new floors scraped out to the bottom.
Tessa Murry (41:06.126)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (41:13.943)
Hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (41:24.492)
New floors put in. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (41:25.953)
Wild. Wild. So what what are you charging for these inspections?
Dillon Winiecki (41:31.939)
I know you’re gonna ask that, so I did look it up, make sure I was gonna quote myself correctly. A thousand seventy is our average fee for what I would say is like a final walk. That’s our most detailed inspection right before closing, or 10 day. 10 day and final walk are the same inspection. We do pre-slab, pre-drywall. We actually had an engineer teach us how to do pre-slab, and then I sent my inspectors to the post-tension institute because we have post-tension slab here. and then I hired
Tessa Murry (41:57.571)
Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (41:59.557)
Code inspectors, actual code inspectors to do that and pre-drywall. So that’s another way we really try to stand out is we’re we’re not just home inspectors trying to do pre-drywall and nothing against that because I did it for years. I’m very passionate about it and I had a good understanding, but the code inspectors truly know, and especially like in your state where you have a state code, that would be, you know, something really beneficial to offer. So those are a little cheaper.
Tessa Murry (42:05.592)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (42:23.565)
Sure, sure.
Dillon Winiecki (42:26.516)
like but for a regular resale home inspection out on the resale market with a real estate agent, we’re like in the eight fifties, eight sixties. So a couple of hundred dollars more. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (42:33.899)
Okay. Okay. All right.
Tessa Murry (42:37.486)
Okay, so you’re not separating these kind of standard SOP inspections with the workmanship ones. They’re all combined and they’re over $1,000, but they probably take a long time to do, I’m assuming.
Dillon Winiecki (42:49.4)
They do. They do. Yeah. So they our our inspectors, we’ve worked a lot on efficiency. And the other thing we’ve done is we’ve done a lot of post report follow-up. What is the builder actually required to repair? Because once again, the document is our are laws and guides that can be interpreted. And the ROC, remember the the registered contractors, they’ll send out an investigator to
look at this when it when a claim is filed. So so here’s kind of how it works. They get our report. We try to tell the client, hey, give your builder every chance possible to repair. They just do. That’s it says it in Minnesota as well. You got to give the builder the right to repair. Now how long is that? Minnesota’s actually very clear of how how long that is. Arizona’s not quite as clear. So it’s something we’re trying to get cleared up a little bit better. But what we want is we want the builder to just fix it and then we’ll return for a one year
And that’s technically our re-inspection, but there’s also just going to be other things that the builder says, Hey, I’m not going to fix this until the one year. And that’s appropriate. The two year is really when we want the client to maybe do a claim if the builder by then still has not made the repairs, either they’re poor workmanship repairs or they didn’t make them at all, or you know, lied about it, or whatever. Then we’re going to suggest that our client do file a claim through the ROC or it gets.
Reuben Saltzman (43:53.325)
Sure.
Dillon Winiecki (44:15.306)
It’s a formal complaint that you do through the government entity. and then we do consulting on that. So we’ll send a consult, either the inspector and our post report specialist or just the inspector, and they will have the report right there and the and be showing the investigator all the things we found and how we interpreted them to be defective or beyond tolerance. And the builder’s usually there too, kind of arguing at their point and saying, Well, our corporate tolerance is this. And it’s like, guy, this is a state.
Reuben Saltzman (44:33.197)
Hmm. Okay.
Tessa Murry (44:34.595)
Wow.
Wow. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (44:39.765)
Of course, yeah.
Tessa Murry (44:43.362)
Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (44:45.27)
implied warranty. It’s statutory. You can’t it doesn’t matter what your your corporate center in Texas or Colorado says. It’s here in Arizona. So
Reuben Saltzman (44:55.329)
Yeah. Okay.
Tessa Murry (44:56.462)
So your inspectors have to be well-versed in just the SOP, standard of inspection, also the ROC and all the new workmanship requirements. And then sometimes they almost kind of even have a foot in the legal side of things dealing with how to file claims and how that process works and dealing with the builder and the pushback and all of that. That’s a lot. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (45:17.954)
Yeah, it’s a lot, a lot of information. We love training. I I I saw it early on that we were gonna need a lot of training. And so I hired what I who I call a training manager. And that’s all he does is he he works with our service manager to build the training and then he builds it into a platform called Trainual. And we have over fifty seven modules in trainual and it’s just mostly new construction. So
Tessa Murry (45:38.646)
Yeah, I can imagine. Wow. Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (45:41.485)
Sure. Wow. And so what percentage of your business consists of new construction, would you say?
Dillon Winiecki (45:48.249)
Yeah, eighty five. Eighty five percent. Yeah. We’re like the opposite of most people around the country that say like, you know, fifteen to twenty, you know, or like, yeah, that’s how much resell we do.
Reuben Saltzman (45:50.061)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (45:50.239)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (45:57.227)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (45:58.881)
Right. Well, but it sounds like I mean, but Phoenix is a a a booming market, right? To there’s is there a lot of new construction going on and it’s there’s a lot of opportunity there. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (46:00.735)
my goodness.
Dillon Winiecki (46:09.912)
Yeah, really spread out, lot of lot of land. But problem’s gonna be water and we’re hearing a lot about that with data centers and that kind of thing, but
Tessa Murry (46:15.65)
Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (46:17.997)
You guys get rain?
Dillon Winiecki (46:19.832)
Do not get enough rain here. Yeah, definitely not. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (46:21.934)
It’s such a different world. Thank you for explaining all this to us because it’s a different world that we’re getting a glimpse into. Obviously, people are asking for wanting it and there’s standards that you can follow and you’ve written report templates from that give you a pathway forward. But I don’t know, Ruben, do you see that happening in Minnesota with having an ROC?
in some sort of kind of standardized, you know, quality requirements for builders. I guess you did research to Dylan like that doesn’t current. We don’t have what Arizona has in that sense, right?
Reuben Saltzman (47:07.793)
We we I’ve never heard of anybody being forced to do anything with any of these. So I I I don’t know how we could, but I don’t know. I feel like I’m still doing the research. I’m still educating myself with this.
Dillon Winiecki (47:19.576)
I I mean Yeah. Yeah, sure. And it and that’s the thing. Like right there, you just said it is like my kind of last point I wanted to make for sure. Was that I didn’t I cared a ton, man. And obviously you do too, man. You’ve built something so impressive. Like you obviously care about your clients, you obviously care about what you’re doing, you care about your employees. But have you taken the time to really get there and research how you could use that law? You know it’s there. I I didn’t even know it was there for a long time.
Tessa Murry (47:23.576)
Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (47:49.349)
Time and size videos really is what really taught me. And another guy named Sean Doherty that I know Andrew talked about. But once I got into it, I was like, this is literally gold, you know, this is literally gonna be the best way to truly help people. I mean, the the name of my company is protect for a reason. That’s my why. I want to protect these people, and it it, you know, it’s like a new why in life, right? Like
I could be protecting people from a burning building, like, or I could be protecting them from big billion-dollar builder, right? And and it just not that they’re bad at per se. Like we work with some builders that are amazing and they they really work with us. They actually like us more than you would think. they respect us, they respect what we’re trying to do. They honestly have a hard time arguing with it. Most of them know now. It’s changing. It’s changing. I went on a pre-drywall the other day just to kind of visit one of my inspectors.
Reuben Saltzman (48:21.175)
Sure. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (48:22.062)
you
Dillon Winiecki (48:45.154)
And there was so much stuff written on the floor about square this, square that, make this more level, you know, make this wall more straight because we call out bow walls because there’s a tolerance in the RLC document that says it can’t be out of. And think about that. The builder rather catch it at pre-drywall rather than tile and baseboard and all that. You got to rip it all out. So, you know, we’re we are making improvements and you know, in our industry locally. And I just I just imagine you know, back to your question about what standard like.
Tessa Murry (48:52.75)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (49:13.944)
I even heard you say this the other day, like there is a national builder standard, and it’s very similar as far as the way it’s written. And so a lot of the things in it are a lot like our Arizona warranty. They just are. So just know that too. And then also, that’s a good place to start, right? And maybe look start looking there. But also, like I said, your your state has those warranties and actually is pretty clear on it. It is code, right? It’s code and then manufacture installation methods. So it’s like, man.
Reuben Saltzman (49:24.511)
Okay. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (49:24.76)
Hmm.
Okay.
Dillon Winiecki (49:43.757)
You’ve done this a long time. How how many times have you actually like gotten a water heater and got into the book of like, all right, is this expansion tank actually required on this or not? Like that we actually do that. We actually figure that out. And with AI, it’s not that hard anymore, to be honest. It’s not like it’s on.
Reuben Saltzman (49:59.928)
Yeah. Yeah. I I used to open the furnace installation manual on every single high efficiency furnace, just looking at what does it say? What do we have? And I would look back and forth. And at at a certain point I just it it became kind of rote and I quit opening manuals, but I did it for a long time. I I applaud that. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (50:13.838)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (50:19.054)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (50:20.334)
Yep. Yep. Wow. Yeah, I think it’s the biggest opportunity.
Tessa Murry (50:24.268)
Gosh, I just think about this is back, I mean, years ago when I was still inspecting the structure tech, but what a challenge it was when we’d find clearances that were improper for like a high efficiency furnace vent terminal, you know, like, we’d put it in the report, you’d put a picture of what the manufacturer said was okay, clearly didn’t meet those standards. And there’s still pushback from the builder on that kind of thing. I can only imagine the uphill battle. We would have
Dillon Winiecki (50:36.707)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (50:51.444)
in Minnesota and I guess Arizona you’re one step ahead of us. You’re going through that process now and you’ve got some builders that are on board and are used to it now. like there’s a there’s going to be a rough starting point if and when you know we start doing this in Minnesota with a lot of these builders.
Reuben Saltzman (51:06.21)
Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (51:11.606)
Absolutely. I’m excited to see.
Tessa Murry (51:12.782)
But you’re changing the standards though at the same time. We talk about what crap we have these days for new construction. It’s just you’re spending 500,000 plus and you’re getting all these issues that you shouldn’t have. And so you’re giving homeowners some teeth to fight back and get a better quality.
Dillon Winiecki (51:29.858)
Yeah. Yeah, you know, a lot of times that’s not the big builder’s fault as much as right, the subs and everything else. There’s a lot that goes into it. You know, there I heard the other day there was a superintendent that had fifty homes assigned to him. Like how is he managing fifty homes? Even if they’re right next to each other, it’s just too much, you know, and so
Tessa Murry (51:38.646)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (51:47.951)
yeah. Yeah. I would not want to be a builder right now. I would not want to be a builder or sub. Yeah. Tough work.
Reuben Saltzman (51:50.359)
Too much.
Dillon Winiecki (51:55.044)
Yeah. Yeah. So
Reuben Saltzman (52:00.759)
Dylan, is there anything I said we were gonna talk about that I forgot to get into? Do we cover everything we were supposed to?
Dillon Winiecki (52:08.056)
Yeah, I don’t I don’t know. I don’t think so. Yeah, I think we did, man. Yeah. This was great. I great conversation. I love it. I’m I’m super passionate about this. I I do. I want I would love to see this become something that people are doing all over the nation. There’s there’s some politicians asking about it. They’re reaching out to the social media influencers because they’re easy to get a hold of, right? And they’re like, How do I get this in my state? You know. you have some pretty good laws there. Florida has some pretty good laws.
Reuben Saltzman (52:10.039)
Okay. Okay.
Tessa Murry (52:12.302)
Well.
Tessa Murry (52:26.722)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dillon Winiecki (52:36.57)
Nevada has a full blown document, but the very first sentence in it is something like, These are recommendations and not requirements. It’s like, okay, well, you know. So Yeah, yeah. So we could see some changes, but
Tessa Murry (52:44.514)
Huh. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Well, hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (52:45.197)
So it takes away all the teeth right at the beginning. Yeah.
Yeah. Well Dylan, if people want to get a hold of you, where do they find you?
Dillon Winiecki (52:56.674)
Yeah, PPI dash az or you know look up my social medias. you just look up Dylan Winnicki at W-I-N-I-E-C-K-I, that easy Polish name, you know. And then give give give Johnny Eagle Eye a follow. He’s our he’s our in-house social media influencer. He’s out there crushing it and he’s a goofball, but he’s doing a great job. And again, you some of this stuff will start to make sense, I hope, for the people who are
Reuben Saltzman (53:08.717)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (53:09.468)
I’m just joking.
Tessa Murry (53:16.651)
So.
Dillon Winiecki (53:23.084)
Naysayers or just don’t understand it. I hope I’ve brought some clarity and just a little bit of understanding of why. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (53:27.15)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (53:28.599)
That’s great. And I will put I’ll put a few links in the show notes so people can find all this stuff easily. Yeah. Well
Tessa Murry (53:29.997)
Yeah.
Dillon Winiecki (53:35.886)
Sounds good, man.
Tessa Murry (53:37.006)
You know, just appreciate thanks. Thanks Dylan for coming on. I just appreciate hearing these different perspectives. Ruben, as we’ve kind of dove into this subject, there are so many, so many different perspectives, how to look at this, how to handle it, how to either fight it or embrace it. And so it’s been fun listening to you, Dylan. Thanks for coming on and sharing your experience and your thoughts.
Reuben Saltzman (53:56.855)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Dillon Winiecki (53:56.984)
Yeah. Yeah. No problem. Thanks for having me. And opinions from good people too, right? Like Andrew’s great. He really is. And there’s some great inspectors here. And we all in our industry, like I said, in IEB, like you said, I go I mean, there’s just some amazing people and we’re all trying to do what’s best, but we’re you know, we’re all deciphering what that really is and looks like.
Tessa Murry (54:03.278)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (54:16.76)
Yep. Exactly. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (54:18.786)
Yeah. Yep. And to the listeners, if you got any thoughts, questions for us, whatever, we love hearing from you. Please write in. You can email us. It’s podcast at structure tech dot com. We read them all and we’d love to hear from you. All right. Well, until next time, we are signing off. Thank you for tuning in, everyone. Have a good one. Take care.
Tessa Murry (54:42.703)
Thanks for listening. Bye.
Dillon Winiecki (54:44.005)
Thanks.