To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/iRw-dmE8GpA
In this episode of the Structure Talk podcast, hosts Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry welcome guests Brad Lowery and Matt Brading to discuss their experiences in the home inspection industry, the importance of building science, and the role of podcasting in connecting with the community. They explore the upcoming Inspection Fuel conference, share insights on effective home inspection practices, and emphasize the need for continuous learning and adaptation in the field. The conversation highlights the value of educating clients and the significance of understanding building science to improve home inspection outcomes.
Check out the YouTube video we mentioned here: $2.5 Million can get you this 9 bedroom house in St. Paul, MN!
Learn more about the conference we talked about here: Inspection Fuel
Takeaways
Home inspection is a community-driven industry.
Building science is crucial for effective home inspections.
Podcasting allows for deeper connections and discussions.
Continuous learning is essential for home inspectors.
Client education is a key responsibility of inspectors.
Understanding building science can prevent major issues.
The Inspection Fuel conference offers valuable insights and networking opportunities.
Podcasting can showcase diverse voices in the industry.
Accessibility in home inspection is important for all clients.
Engaging with the audience enhances the podcasting experience.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Guest Introductions
02:54 Brad Lowery’s Journey in Home Inspection
06:05 Matt Brading’s Background and Podcasting Experience
09:03 The Importance of Building Science in Home Inspections
11:50 Upcoming Conference and Presentations
14:56 Understanding Home Inspection Challenges
17:56 The Role of Inspectors in Client Education
20:53 Final Thoughts and Conference Details
24:43 Exciting Conference Plans in New Orleans
27:54 The Value of Podcasting in Home Inspection
34:43 Learning and Community Building through Podcasts
39:13 Connecting with Diverse Audiences
42:43 Final Thoughts and Conference Reminders
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 (00:00.934)
Welcome back to the show. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast. Tessa, how are you doing in sunny Florida today?
Tessa Murry (00:09.787)
I’m staying inside, Reuben. I’m doing okay. Nothing new. Nothing new.
Reuben Saltzman (00:12.03)
It’s hot. Okay. All right. Nothing has changed for the last four months we’ve been I’ve been asking you this question. Okay. All right.
Tessa Murry (00:21.87)
And the answer is gonna be the same every single time it’s hot and humid yeah, yeah
Reuben Saltzman (00:25.886)
Stay in its home. Okay. All right. Well, we will not get into any little personal stories today because we got a couple of guests on the show today. We are welcoming two people. We got Brad Lowry here who is here to promote porch and podcasting and whatever else. And we also got his co-host of his podcast. We got a fellow podcaster on the show. We got Matt Braiding here. How are you guys doing today?
Matt Brading (00:55.032)
Man, I’m doing great. How about you, Brad?
Brad Lowery (00:56.994)
Dude, absolutely loving it down here in Florida as well and Tessa, why are you not outside? It is Labor Day weekend coming up. This is when you go to the Springs with God and everybody else and go pet some manatees.
Tessa Murry (01:10.766)
That’s a great idea, Brad. Yeah, I’ll fight the herds of people and the heat and the gators and the traffic. Yeah, no thanks.
Brad Lowery (01:16.736)
and the Gators. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (01:21.19)
I don’t see her going out.
Matt Brading (01:21.53)
Go to the gift shop, get a stuff manager and just pretend.
Brad Lowery (01:25.678)
You could do that. No, no, honestly. Thanks so much for having us on the show guys. Seriously. Uh, Ruben, obviously I’ve been following you for a long time, Tessa, you as well. And we’ve actually, you know, had you on the show a few times last year. So I, it’s this one big happy here. We’re, happy to be on seriously.
Tessa Murry (01:26.264)
What
Reuben Saltzman (01:40.538)
heck yeah. So for anybody who hasn’t heard of you yet, Brad, can you just talk a little bit about your background? Like the podcast you were doing with Ashy home inspections, what you’re doing today, walk us through everything that brought you to this point today.
Brad Lowery (01:53.538)
Yeah, yeah.
Definitely man. Yeah. I’ve been a home inspector for 10 years and it’s going to be kind of a good segue because I started out up in Virginia, just outside Washington, DC and inspected all over that area for a decade. And I started with a little mom and pop company and then moved on over to BPG inspections. And that was when I got introduced to Ashy and the inspection world conference. I think it was 2020 down in New Orleans and that’s where.
everybody got COVID. And that was fun. there was also, this was the first inspection conference I had ever been to. And there was somebody there named Tessa Murray, who was presenting on building science, and I had never heard of building science. And I was like, this is just so freaking cool. And, you know, got to know all you guys got involved a little bit with IEB, you know, Ruben, I’d followed you your show here for a while. And, you know, just just kind of looked up to everybody. But
Tessa Murry (02:40.844)
Bye!
Brad Lowery (02:56.274)
I, from there with home inspections, know, I, Ashley kind of brought me on to do a podcast with a Rose Buckley up in Maryland. That was the old inspection connection podcast. then, porch brought me on to, kind of do the same thing over here, present or producing a whole like content channel around the ride along, which is a podcast and YouTube show. And, that’s how, how Matt kind of got in on it as well. But,
It’s been fun. We got to film with both you and Ruben and Tessa last year up in Minnesota. It’s been a great time, Yeah, definitely.
Reuben Saltzman (03:29.49)
Yeah, that was a good show. That was fun. And if anybody didn’t watch it, I mean, I’m sure we’ve talked about it on the podcast here. How would people find it? Like, what do you punch into Google or on YouTube to find that episode?
Brad Lowery (03:44.642)
Yeah, go to the Ride Along show or the Ride Along home inspection show. can just put that right into the search and it’ll show up. It was last fall, I think we filmed it or put it out there, been a minute, but that was a lot of fun. I was a, mean, Matt, you missed out on this one, but we’ll have to go back sometime. It was a beautiful area and gosh, a big old Queen Anne Victorian Airbnb. That was a fun episode.
Reuben Saltzman (03:51.069)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (04:10.47)
just making a note. will put a link to that episode in the show notes if anybody wants to check it out.
Tessa Murry (04:10.794)
Yeah.
Brad Lowery (04:17.57)
Yeah, definitely,
Tessa Murry (04:18.187)
And I’m curious, have your recent travels taken you, Brad? Have you filmed in other states too recently for the ride along?
Brad Lowery (04:24.662)
Yes, we have one coming out and Matt’s been kicking my butt to get this one finished here for a minute because it’s cool. is really testing. You would have freaking nerded out over this building. In fact, I texted you while we were there. were, yeah, this was Matt, tell them a little about it because you’re the one that kind of like made this connection down there in Austin.
Matt Brading (04:43.994)
So, I mean, you you can’t be involved in building science and not know the name Matt Reisinger. And so, you know, he’s pretty large in that world. And he’s also out here in Texas. He’s out in the Austin areas where he’s based. And I know him. I haven’t known him. I’ve several years ago got was in a networking event and we were there together. We got to know each other a little bit.
Reuben Saltzman (04:51.6)
yeah.
Matt Brading (05:11.384)
And so me and Brad were looking for a place to shoot some things with the ride along, an intro and just some kind of, you know, kind of like what you guys did up there, you know, can walk around the house, talk about some features of the house and kind of somewhat inspect that one anyway. And so we were looking for a good location to do that. And so I rang up Matt and said, Hey, you know, at the time he had a, a, and he filmed the entire process of building this house called the rising or built.
And it was, he built show live. has a construction conference every year. This would be the second year coming up, coming up next month or in October. And last October, I think it was last October, he showed this house at the framing stage as part of a VIP ticket to that show. And so he filmed the whole thing, like from multiple camera angles.
Drone footage all this stuff put out tons of videos of all that went into this build and then you get to visit the site at framing at the show and and whatnot and anyway, I didn’t go at the show but I’ve been there previously at the framing stage and But I hadn’t seen the finished product at this point. It was the finished well close to the finished product It was very very close to to being the finished product and
Tessa Murry (06:13.261)
Hmm.
Matt Brading (06:31.51)
He said, yeah, come on, come on out here and film at the house. so me and Brad went there and it was, it was a good time. I mean, it was really cool to see since I had seen it in multiple stages and watched a lot of videos on it. It was really cool to see it come together, you know, a really, how a house that just looks very, normal and it’s at a seventies neighborhood out there in Austin. And it very much blends in with its surroundings. You wouldn’t, it’s very unassuming, but it’s filled with all kinds of really cool high performance details.
Reuben Saltzman (07:01.56)
I’m looking forward to seeing that episode. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (07:02.27)
that’s neat. Yeah, me too.
Brad Lowery (07:03.98)
Yeah. I mean, we’re talking monopoly framing, enclosed attic spaces, air ventilation recovery, a heat pump, water heater, all kinds of stuff. it is. Yep.
Tessa Murry (07:13.965)
Yeah, all that’s fun. That’s really cool. Neat.
Reuben Saltzman (07:15.505)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (07:18.984)
And then Matt, can you introduce yourself to what’s, what’s your background? How long you’ve been doing the home inspection thing and the podcast, all that.
Matt Brading (07:25.882)
Sure. So yeah, home inspector out of the Houston, Texas area, Texas Edge home inspections. Been doing that since 2017. Been putting out social media content since about 2018. That kind of exploded on me a couple years later after that. Probably the best known thing I have out there in terms of my content is a series I call It’s Not Supposed to Do That.
where I just find things that are broken and just say it’s not supposed to do that in a real deadpan style. People seem to like it for some reason. I’ve been doing that every Thursday for like three years, three, three and a half years or something like that. It’s a labor of love. So I got that going. I am a longtime podcaster, first time co-host. I haven’t ever really done much in the way of podcasting myself, except for being a guest on people’s podcasts. But it’s funny as I’ve wanted to for a long time.
Tessa Murry (08:05.165)
you
Reuben Saltzman (08:11.422)
Okay.
Matt Brading (08:20.75)
You just meet a lot of people. go to a lot of events. I meet a lot of people. know a lot of people in high performance building and construction and home inspectors and just all kinds of really awesome, great minds. And I’ve always wanted to like do something to showcase them, but I do not have the time to put into building something. And so I thought about doing an Instagram live thing where I had some guests come on and chat about these topics, kind of in a podcast style.
Reuben Saltzman (08:40.915)
Yeah.
Matt Brading (08:50.554)
But I felt like that would be a lot less work to put together. then I never even took the time to do that. And then the last winter, Brad called me up and hey, how would you like to be the co-host of the ride along? I was like, absolutely. mean, like, you know, just like hop on something that was already established and say, hey, I told him immediately. I was like, man, I got ideas. I got got guests. I’ve been wanting to do it. Been waiting for your call for years. anyway, it’s good. What’s that?
Tessa Murry (09:04.941)
Okay.
Brad Lowery (09:15.634)
yeah, you’ve been bringing it dude. I said, you’ve been bringing it seriously. And honestly, kind of, and this is a good little segue here. It all started kind of at inspection fuel last fall. mean, if some inspection fuels, the conference that porch puts on every year, that originally started, I think with ISN and it’s kind of grown from there over the years.
Matt Brading (09:20.164)
Yeah.
Brad Lowery (09:38.444)
You know, we’ve, we’ve got a good partnership kind of with, with IEB. They’re going to be there. Mark Hummel is going to be MCing and, but every year at. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (09:45.951)
And hold on. Wait, let me pause on that for a minute. I be that is our show sponsor, Inspector Empire Builder, coaching, training, business development for home inspection company owners. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve got all, you know, multi inspector company or you’re a one person shop. They have stuff designed to help you grow your business. And I just didn’t want you to gloss over this too quickly. The CEO over there, Mark Hummel.
Like you said, he’s going to be emceeing the entire inspection fuel conference. Fantastic presenter. Love listening to that guy talk. I wish so bad I would be able to be there just well, I’ll throw it back to you. I just had to jump in there just so we didn’t gloss over too quickly, but go on.
Brad Lowery (10:31.67)
No, I-
Matt Brading (10:32.729)
Why can’t you make it? Just drop whatever you’re doing and get out.
Brad Lowery (10:36.856)
Come on, Reuben. Tessa’s going.
Reuben Saltzman (10:38.446)
I am going to be in Hawaii with my wife. It’s her first time there. And I think if we were to do something else, I, I’d, I’d be sleeping on the couch for a very long time.
Matt Brading (10:44.73)
That sounds terrible.
Matt Brading (10:52.132)
Honestly, I can’t believe you’re picking Hawaii over New Orleans. all about.
Brad Lowery (10:55.02)
Yeah, you know.
Reuben Saltzman (10:55.902)
It was a tough decision. It was a tough decision.
Brad Lowery (10:58.253)
I don’t blame you.
Tessa Murry (10:58.869)
No
Matt Brading (10:59.066)
Whatever, who eats his own? Whatever.
Brad Lowery (11:01.036)
Look, I we do a thing called the drink of the day on our show. And if I had a Mai Tai ready, I would raise it to you right now. Okay.
Tessa Murry (11:02.721)
We forgive you.
Reuben Saltzman (11:08.52)
Thank you.
Tessa Murry (11:08.557)
Well, we’re gonna miss you Ruben. We will miss you there.
Reuben Saltzman (11:12.254)
I’m going to be missing you guys. really wish I could be there, but Brad, back, go back into it. I didn’t mean to cut you off, but what, who else is going to be there? What else happens at this conference?
Brad Lowery (11:15.436)
Yeah, well, I’m… Yeah, never.
Brad Lowery (11:22.764)
Well, I kind of want to go back to what you were saying about with Mark, I, you know, shoot, we’re not, we’re not, you know, paid to endorse IEB. I just can’t help it because they are so helpful. And I, I know Mark personally, I actually do a Monday morning kind of a coaching call with him. And, it, this isn’t stuff that just helps you grow your business. This helps you grow as a person, as a leader, you know, and it’s so it’s your, your business will only ever be as good as you are.
Tessa Murry (11:32.589)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (11:45.682)
Yes. Yes.
Brad Lowery (11:51.661)
And if you’re not investing in yourself, you’re nothing else will grow. Right. So, it’s a, it’s, it’s invaluable. I know some people though, they’ve kind of looked at some of these coaching networks and they’re like, you know, you really get your money’s worked out a bit, dude, it’s not about what you’re paying. It’s about how you’re growing and, it’s a, a big deal. So yeah, Mark will be there. Tessa, you’re going to be there. Talk a little bit about what you’re going to be presenting on. Cause you’re going to be one of the, the speakers there.
Tessa Murry (12:18.861)
I will be. Yeah, I’m super excited about it. I haven’t actually done a conference since pre-COVID. And it was the inspection world one, Brad, that you were talking about. So that’ll be really fun. I’m going to be presenting on building science for home inspectors. Shocker, right? That is a broad topic, but I’m going to be kind of focusing on the house as a system. And it’s basically just helping people think about the house in a new way, in a holistic way.
and all the different systems and all the different parts and pieces and how when you change one thing, you impact another. And kind of going through a lot of examples and case studies of how things can go wrong, why they went wrong, and how to kind of spot them and diagnose them. So it should be fun.
Brad Lowery (13:03.042)
No, yeah, that’s it. That like, seriously, like you’re like, you’ve got, she has your attention right there. And when I heard that presentation at inspection world as a, as an inspector that had never heard of the term building science before, just the whole thing, I was just like, my mind was blown and I was just able to see things in a completely different way. so yeah, if you guys are listening, come to the session, it’s going to be really good.
Matt Brading (13:03.096)
You have my attention.
Reuben Saltzman (13:03.923)
Love it.
Reuben Saltzman (13:31.902)
That is so cool to hear.
Tessa Murry (13:32.065)
That’s cool. The tricky part is… Yeah, thank you. Well, you know, the tricky part is how do I take, you know, like 400 slides and condense it to two hours? So, we’ll see.
Matt Brading (13:42.456)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (13:44.913)
Yes. Yes. And, know, I just, I want to touch on that, Brad, because, you know, Tessa and I, talk about this stuff week in and week out. And within the company at StructureTech, I mean, we talk about all these building science things all the time. And I remember when Tessa was putting that presentation together, she’s like, is this going to be interesting? Is anyone going to care about this? Like, I mean,
Brad Lowery (13:47.874)
Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (14:11.562)
People kind of know this already right room. I’m just like no no There’s there’s always new people who are not familiar with the whole concept of it and just hearing you reinforce that it just it Energizes me. I love hearing that Brad. Thank you
Matt Brading (14:14.266)
I don’t.
Brad Lowery (14:16.344)
No, they don’t.
Tessa Murry (14:23.681)
Yeah.
Yeah, me too.
Matt Brading (14:26.852)
You know, I think, you know, a way to like, and you’ve probably already done this, but like a way to like narrow it down is to really like kind of eliminate the tech of it really. And like, and really just talk about the basics of it. Like what is high performance? What is, you know, building science? mean, like I’ve done some presentations on it before too. And I think like what, what breaks it down, I think it gets people to really understand it is like, all right, well, we, are inside that is outside and we want what’s out there to stay out there so that we can be.
Tessa Murry (14:54.509)
Thank
Matt Brading (14:56.346)
cool and controlled inside this environment, you know? And it’s like, think when you really, it’s almost like you gotta break it down as if they don’t know anything. And I just think that that’s where, I mean, it’s not to try to say that people are stupid, but like they just can understand it better, you know, understand the idea behind it. I think there’s, I mean, I know, I mean, I’ve done it mostly for like realtors or homeowners is when I’ve done presentations on this stuff. And so they’re like,
Tessa Murry (14:58.505)
Yeah. Exactly.
Tessa Murry (15:04.141)
Yep.
Tessa Murry (15:15.263)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (15:23.093)
Okay. Yeah.
Matt Brading (15:25.412)
sponge, right? Inspectors, their hearts, are probably thinking they know everything already. I think right off the bat, like if you start talking to them with that kind of stuff, like they’ll be humbled enough to listen right away. I mean, I think there needs to be more inspectors out there with a knowledge of building science for sure.
Tessa Murry (15:32.557)
you
Reuben Saltzman (15:46.29)
Yes, yes.
Tessa Murry (15:47.532)
Well, and if anything, it’s like you said, I mean, you have to kind of gauge it. So it’s like your audience will be, you know, you’ll have a spectrum of people there, people who are at more of a kindergarten reading level, who’ve never heard about building science to like people who know it well, and they do it every day. And so how do you make a presentation that suits everybody’s needs? But like you said, it’s just it’s a part of it’s a part of our, you know,
It should be a part of the home inspection industry. I mean, thinking about building science. And if it’s not, then I hope I can help people at least be aware that it should be and start to integrate it into what they do.
Matt Brading (16:26.468)
Like for me, I feel like it’s always about identifying problems. Like, I mean, we have a scope of work, right? And as long as we work within our scope of work, then we’re good. But just to push the envelope a little bit and work a little bit beyond that scope, you know, if I say, okay, you’ve got a problem here, what if I knew what might be causing that problem, right? And what if I knew what might cause problems and now armed with that knowledge, it makes me better at identifying the problem, right? This is where…
Tessa Murry (16:46.26)
Exactly.
Tessa Murry (16:53.62)
Exactly.
Matt Brading (16:54.776)
This is my mind goes and that’s why I think it’s needed.
Tessa Murry (16:56.449)
That’s exactly what I’m to be doing with this class, hopefully. Making inspectors better at inspecting and hopefully improving customer satisfaction, client satisfaction. Because like you said, you can be just a checkbox home inspector where you go in and you make sure this is OK, this is OK, this is OK. But at the end of the day,
You could miss potentially major, major issues that are happening that could cost the homeowner tens of thousands of dollars. And then what’s the point of getting a home inspection? They want to know what they’re getting, right? That’s your job, to educate them.
Reuben Saltzman (17:30.704)
Yes, and I just got to share it because it’s right alongside this. This week’s blog post and and what was it? YouTube video that I put out there was about what to do when the home inspector says a water heater is back drafting. And it just seems like so many home inspectors will report on evidence of back drafting. They didn’t even make the water heater back draft. You just got some melted plastic at the draft hood.
And then the knee-jerk reaction in the industry is there was evidence of previous backdrafting. Haven’t further evaluated by a qualified, but, but, but, but, but, it’s exactly what you just said, Tessa. We’re checking the box. We’re saying, saw it. I called it out and someone needs to do something about it. what, what value is there in that? I mean, was it backdrafting five years ago and someone fixed it or did you actually make it backdraft?
Tessa Murry (18:11.255)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (18:17.237)
Yeah.
Exactly. Well.
mean, good luck to the homeowner getting a report that’s like 30 pages, 50 pages, whatever, and it’s got all these other things going on. And now they’ve got this one little comment that’s like, it further evaluated. Who do they call to come test a water heater for back drafting? Like, who should, who does that? There’s a lot of plumbers that I’ve talked to that don’t even do that, that don’t test that. So it’s like, okay, if we, if we’re coming in to evaluate, you know, whether a house,
is safe for the occupants or there’s defects or issues. Why not understand why a water heater backdrops, what could be causing it, and how to diagnose it right there on the spot? It takes a few more minutes, but you can do it. so anyways, yes, to your point, Ruben, that’s a really good example.
Matt Brading (19:11.578)
I think in answering the why, whatever it is, whether it’s a water heater back drafting or some type of HVAC related issue or something, but like having a little bit of knowledge when the, not necessarily in the report, right? We’ve done the report. Hey, the report’s done, but whenever somebody asks you, well, what does this mean? Why could this be happening? And you having a little bit of knowledge and to be able to expand upon that, you know, in a wrap up, I think that’s huge.
Tessa Murry (19:32.459)
Yeah, exactly.
Brad Lowery (19:33.901)
Now, and there’s also the fact that it’s when you’re talking about CEs, most of the conferences that I go to and have been to in the past, I question how helpful some of the coursework is because you can only sit through so many of the same lectures about chimneys or so many of the same lectures about water heaters and then listen to, you know, people debate code about this and that. And I’m like, okay, but if you want to understand
modern standards and modern building practices and what the overall objective is. For the punch list home inspectors, I started under those, right? I thought the house was supposed to breathe, right? I thought that’s what we said. So we used to say, that’s what the old guys taught me, but it’s like you talk to building science experts that want to fully enclose the home and seal every gap. And I’m like, but why?
You know, and it’s, when you talk about HVAC now and what you’re trying to accomplish and energy efficiency, it’s like, okay, well this makes sense. But if you want to stay at the top, at the tip of the spear as a home inspector with modern building practices, you need to know about building science. This is the biggest game changer in my mind for people that want to stay relevant. And it changes, I was actually, Matt, you know, we had Travis Jones on the show.
Tessa Murry (20:27.885)
Thank
Tessa Murry (20:46.871)
him.
Brad Lowery (20:54.61)
And he’s actually going to be at inspection fuel as well. Another building science guy. We were talking about how this can change the types of questions that you ask at home inspections, right? Because we go in often, okay, got to test the furnace, make sure, yeah, okay, it’s coming out hot enough. Got to test the AC, make sure the Delta T is good. But we don’t ask the seller, what are your energy bills like? That could indicate drafting. That could indicate poor insulation.
Reuben Saltzman (21:18.674)
Yeah. Yeah.
Brad Lowery (21:22.786)
Like that’s just, that’s not a standard question that you ask, but it could let you get next level on terms of making somebody’s home more efficient or discovering inefficiencies that already exist. Right. So.
Tessa Murry (21:32.577)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (21:33.906)
Yes.
Matt Brading (21:34.242)
Yeah, go because if you’re trying to build a sealed structure and you fail, like this can cause all kinds of major problems and the people think, I’ve got a nice home that’s nice sealed foam insulation, all this. I don’t have anything to worry about. Only they could be like cooking up a serious problem.
Tessa Murry (21:38.871)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (21:50.934)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And kind of now that I’m, you know, doing consulting with my business, your house coach, a lot of my clients come to me because they’ve got health concerns and they’re not sure what’s causing it or what’s, you know, what to do about it. And so I’ll come in and it really does take, you know, all of the years of experience of working and building performance and building science and weatherization and home inspection to try and diagnose
what’s happening and it’s never just one thing. It’s usually a bunch of things going on. And so you have to look at all the different parts and pieces, the building envelope, the mechanicals, occupant behavior to try and figure out, you know, what’s contributing to this and then what do we do to make it better? And how do we not make it worse at the same time? So, you know, people care about these things. People, you know, they get a home inspection because they want to make sure that, you know, they understand what they’re getting and hopefully not getting a lemon. But
You know, we’re in our stance of practice as it say that, you know, you’re making sure that the house is comfortable or that it’s safe and healthy or that it’s durable. And those are probably like the top things that people care about. You know, they get in there and if, you know, if they’re having health problems or they’ve got poor air quality or they’ve got a room above a garage that’s like they can’t get it below 80 degrees in the summer. But, you know, like those are the things they complain about. And so as a home inspector, we should be aware of these things. And, you know, when we were
When I was training with StructureTech, we would help inspectors reduce potential for callbacks and liability by asking these questions at the beginning of the inspection. Hey, what are your biggest concerns? What are you worried about? Sometimes it’d be like, well, yeah, we’re selling this house because it had mold problems.
You know, we don’t want to deal with that again. And it’s like, as a home inspector, okay, that’s, wow, now you really need to be paying attention to any potential hidden moisture issues that are going on. So understanding building science is key to that.
Reuben Saltzman (23:58.419)
Yep, agreed.
Brad Lowery (24:00.525)
All this to say, I’m just looking forward to your presentation, Tess. It’s going to be good.
Reuben Saltzman (24:03.324)
Yeah.
Matt Brading (24:03.674)
We really went down the hole there, didn’t we?
Tessa Murry (24:04.162)
Hey, me too.
Reuben Saltzman (24:07.857)
So just
Brad Lowery (24:08.002)
That’s it. That’s I told you it’s a full circle thing. We’re coming back to New Orleans and she’s presenting on on building science again. Here we go.
Reuben Saltzman (24:14.044)
Yeah, but but to pull it back to the conference itself, there’s a ton of speakers, ton of sessions here. How many how many do you know, Brad? How many sessions are there going to be? you have an idea?
Tessa Murry (24:14.637)
Thank you.
Brad Lowery (24:26.927)
I can pull this up right now and tell you.
Reuben Saltzman (24:29.062)
Okay. I believe yeah, I’d go with it, but it’s happening in September 8th through the 10th in, well, am I supposed to say Nolens or Nolens? Yeah. I want to get it right. New Orleans. Okay.
Matt Brading (24:29.57)
I think it’s 27. No, I don’t know. just, I made that number up.
Brad Lowery (24:42.474)
In all of it, in all of it, in all of it.
Tessa Murry (24:42.933)
That works.
Matt Brading (24:44.41)
New Orleans.
Tessa Murry (24:47.277)
You… New Orleans.
Matt Brading (24:49.114)
New Orleans?
Brad Lowery (24:52.024)
We’ve got, we’ve got 12 CE classes going on. that’s going to be on the ninth and the 10th. a lot of conferences, like you go to InterNACHI and we love the InterNACHI conference too. But, I noticed that a lot of people piece out, before the final day, right? Most of the CE classes are at the beginning. We’ve tried to structure our conference a little bit differently because we want the whole thing to be good.
We don’t want you to just come in for one day and then leave. We want every day to pack value. So we’ve got these spread from the beginning to the end. come stay for the whole time. New Orleans is just a blast and good food, good beverages down there, lots of drinks of the day gonna be had, Matt.
Matt Brading (25:39.77)
Some of the better things are happening on the last day, I might.
Brad Lowery (25:42.732)
They are, including what do we got going on?
Matt Brading (25:46.138)
I think there’s something about some live podcast with those guys from the Ride Along or something. I think that’s happening, right? I really want to check that out. Those guys are awesome.
Brad Lowery (25:51.596)
Yeah, that might be happening. Yeah, yeah. That’s gonna be going on. Yep.
Brad Lowery (25:59.215)
They’re pretty cool, man.
Reuben Saltzman (25:59.712)
And by the way, I’m just kind of mind blown. I’m looking at the price to attend here. Is this right? $99.
Brad Lowery (26:07.65)
That’s it.
Reuben Saltzman (26:09.374)
That’s crazy. Yeah. Okay. All right. Really good deal.
Brad Lowery (26:10.37)
Why would you not go?
Tessa Murry (26:13.717)
Do you have any idea, how big it is or, Matt, how many people go to this thing?
Matt Brading (26:19.776)
I would throw a number out there like I did with the amount of classes, but I don’t have any idea.
Tessa Murry (26:23.373)
Yeah.
Brad Lowery (26:23.822)
Yeah, we’re up to over 300 registrants. I think we’re going to be at around 350.
Tessa Murry (26:28.471)
Wow, okay, that’s awesome. Yeah, that’s really cool.
Brad Lowery (26:32.226)
That’s going to be good.
Matt Brading (26:32.506)
Probably after this show airs, it’ll probably go up at least another 50 or so.
Brad Lowery (26:35.864)
Plus if y’all like tools, this has always been one of my favorite things with conferences, right? There’s always an excuse to get the newest, more lumens, Phoenix flashlight for me. Cause I’m like, look, when I got into this, I thought 960 was great, but now I need 15,000. Okay. If I don’t have to put my sunglasses on in the attic, it’s not bright enough.
Reuben Saltzman (26:35.996)
absolutely. yeah.
Tessa Murry (26:36.204)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (26:47.624)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (26:52.456)
Yeah, you do. Yeah.
Matt Brading (26:55.028)
Which one is that Tessa? Which one is that Tessa?
Reuben Saltzman (26:58.088)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (27:00.023)
This is the Phoenix PD35 and it is the best little flashlight ever. Reuben, you recommended it when I started inspecting. I’ve had this thing for probably like what, 10 years now? And I’ve dropped it off a roof. What?
Matt Brading (27:05.018)
I’m
Matt Brading (27:08.442)
Is the on the back? Is the button on the back of the side?
Reuben Saltzman (27:08.616)
yeah, you’re wearing the paint off that. Yeah.
Brad Lowery (27:13.102)
They’re better than that now.
Matt Brading (27:14.554)
That’s at the back. Okay. I want very similar buttons on the side.
Tessa Murry (27:15.266)
Yeah.
Yeah, I love it. I love it. it’s yeah, it’s super bright. It’s small. It’s extremely durable. Like I said, I’ve dropped it off of roofs before and it’s still still working.
Matt Brading (27:27.194)
This episode was brought to you by Phoenix Flashlights. I have one that literally cracked. The one that I carry is very similar to that, the glass that’s cracked, the lens is completely cracked because I’ve dropped it several times. It’s gotten completely wet. And I have a brand new one in my bag that I can just switch the battery out for, but I refuse to use it until this thing just stops and it doesn’t give up. It just keeps going.
Reuben Saltzman (27:29.182)
still taking love it. Yes. Yeah, we need to get them on as a show sponsor. I promote this stuff a lot.
Tessa Murry (27:31.852)
He
Brad Lowery (27:34.466)
That would be awesome.
Tessa Murry (27:34.967)
There we go.
Reuben Saltzman (27:56.414)
Yeah
Matt Brading (27:56.482)
It’s literally broken and it just keeps rolling.
Brad Lowery (27:58.703)
It’s just still working.
Reuben Saltzman (27:58.847)
Love it. Love it. Well, we all right. So that’s that’s a little bit about inspection fuel. And the other the other thing we wanted to talk about today is just podcasting in general and why we’re doing this. Brad, why don’t you start? Why why did you start a podcast? What’s the point of even doing this?
Brad Lowery (28:18.764)
I mean it’s a number of things right. Gosh I don’t I don’t want to bring up you know negative vibes but the name porch was not a well loved name in the industry for a hot second. And.
Reuben Saltzman (28:30.651)
It sure was not, no.
Brad Lowery (28:31.956)
No, no. And despite the fact that, you know, these were tools that a lot of inspectors used. you know, when I kind of came on board with them, Inspection Connection did really well for Ashy. And the reason is it’s everybody, the home inspection community, it is indeed that it’s a community. love to talk together. It’s very synergistic. We love to share ideas. We love to nerd out about the technical side of our jobs. And podcasting is a, has long been a space where, people can
connect around a niche and home inspections is,
by and large, kind of a niche industry. So it’s been really fun over the years to kind of build a community around that. And when I came on board with Porsche, I told them, I’m like, guys, what inspectors need is to be able to trust you. And they can only trust you if there’s faces that they could connect to the name, right? They need to know the people behind it, because I knew the people behind it. I went to Inspection World in 2020. And that’s when I first met Stacey Rose and several of the other people at Porsche. I’m like, oh, these people are
cool, man. They actually care about home inspectors. They love their job. They love what they’re doing. And they’re trying to make a good mark in the industry. so when I kind of came on over and launched the Ride Along, the goal was to continue just that, to kind of take the community involvement forward and continue to build that not just an audience, but a
place where we can all kind of come together and talk. I mean, very similar to what you guys are doing over here. Matt was already doing that with with Texas Edge Inspect and his social media. so it’s, you know, it just kind of has all worked out and continued as we’ve kind of just been building that community.
Reuben Saltzman (30:17.288)
Yeah, yeah, love it. And, you know, if somebody was interested in starting a podcast, what advice would you give them?
Tessa Murry (30:19.383)
Cool.
Brad Lowery (30:28.172)
know your audience. First and foremost, you gotta know who you’re trying to speak with. I don’t wanna say speak to, who do you wanna speak with? Right, because this is, podcasting is part of social media. And if you’re not social, what’s the point, right? You want people to talk and communicate and share comments, share their thoughts. It all kind of feeds back into that loop where…
You know, for me, my goal is when I get to a conference, I don’t want people to just, it’s not for vanity’s sake that people, you know, I want people to come up and be like, I love the show. No, I want them to be like, man, I love listening to this. I’ve taken this away from it. What do you think about this? What should I do about this?
or, you know, hey, who’s got some advice on that? And where we can all kind of just sit down. The reason that we do the drink of the day segment is I want to be able to sit down together like we do at a conference and talk shop and share life and share what we do with our businesses. So know your audience, know who you want to speak with.
Reuben Saltzman (31:27.9)
Okay, all right, that’s good.
Matt Brading (31:30.346)
I think, you know, podcasting, like why, why do we do it? You know, I mean, it is a form of social media, like you said, but it’s very different too, in terms of like, you know, like YouTube is considered social media, right? But yeah, that’s really different than your, than like Instagram or Facebook or Tik Tok, right? That’s a completely different form of social media. And podcasting is vastly different from all of those. Although I would still consider it a form of social media, but it’s like,
Reuben Saltzman (31:47.9)
Yeah, absolutely.
Brad Lowery (31:48.642)
But it’s not the biggest.
Tessa Murry (31:49.121)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Brading (31:57.435)
There’s two things that think really separated. Number one, we can just talk, right? And it’s one thing when you do a collaboration with somebody or you put something out there and it’s just, are putting this information out, this is it, it’s done. But that’s not conversational, right? We can actually have a conversation. We can have differing opinions and kind of battle back and forth, maybe come to an agreement on something. It just adds a lot of interest, right? Also,
I think the underlying thing that makes podcasts so much different than anything else is that while we record this stuff and put it out there in a video format, it’s kind of started out and still is very much an audio format that people listen to while they’re driving down the road. And so it’s a way for them to, I’m sure we’ve all been there. I I know I have where whatever it is, I mean, I’ve been there for other things in my life besides home inspection, where it’s like,
Okay, my new obsession is this, I can’t get enough of this. Let me look up a podcast that and listen to that while I’m driving down the road, you know, or even when I’m my inspection sometimes, I might have that my earbud, you know? And so anyway, I just think it’s a way for people to take that stuff in on a different level that just can’t seem to get enough of the talks about construction and building science and home inspection and whatever stuff we’re getting ourselves into.
Tessa Murry (32:57.517)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Lowery (33:14.146)
Yeah, it’s also kind of to entertain and educate, right? Because you have to provide that value to your target audience.
Tessa Murry (33:14.315)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Brading (33:20.814)
I really think like for me, like, think it was like showcasing guests, you know, like, I think there are some people like, okay, I’m gonna use Travis Jones as an example, because he was really the guy that was about a year and a half ago now that when I actually met him, I knew of him. But when I actually met him, and kind of heard his story, I was like, God, people got to hear the story. And I knew I had a platform where I could get it out there, right? If I could just
Tessa Murry (33:21.548)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:45.869)
Mm.
Matt Brading (33:50.521)
like develop, if I could just develop some type of podcast or whatever, I knew I had a platform where I could get him his story out there in front of people that hadn’t heard it before. And so that was really a lot of motivation for me. And rather than building it, like I joined on with the ride along and same result, but I can still use my platform to try to leverage whatever we put out there to try to get out to my audience. And so that I really take a lot of pride in making sure to find
interesting guests or just both of us, know, having interesting guests on the show, have interesting conversation and really give them a chance to shine.
Brad Lowery (34:28.61)
Yeah. Yeah. Now that was the other thing too, with building the ride along, was, we wanted to present Home Inspectors with a platform where they can tell their stories, right? So it’s featuring those people exactly like you said, Matt, it’s one of the best parts of the show.
Reuben Saltzman (34:28.798)
Sure, sure.
Tessa Murry (34:29.005)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (34:45.298)
Yeah, yeah, Tessa, why do you keep doing the podcast?
Tessa Murry (34:50.945)
think the biggest reason for me is it’s fun and I’m always learning something. know, podcasts for me are like my preferred method of learning. I realize like I can read, but I’m not a huge reader. For me, I’d rather listen to something. And like you guys are talking about, know, whatever topic catches your interest, you want to learn more about there, you will find a show on it somewhere and multiple shows. And so I’ve…
To me, doing this podcast with Ruben has, I feel like I’ve learned so much from doing it, not only from you, Ruben, your wealth of knowledge, as everybody knows, but also just the guests that we’ve had on too. Talking to these experts in their fields, in their industries, and asking them questions, it’s genuinely, I just, love learning.
Reuben Saltzman (35:39.775)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I second that completely. I I’ve learned so much from so many different guests on here. I mean, I’ll go back to podcasts that we’ve done years ago, like, oh wait, I got to re-listen to this. And it makes me really thankful that, you know, way back in the day, we had a few listeners who were hearing impaired and they said it’d be really nice if you could have these transcribed.
Tessa Murry (35:49.409)
Yeah. You really should. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (36:03.888)
And now I can search those archives and I can search for keywords and I’m like, I’m so glad we did this. I mean, I thought I’m, I’m just going through such hassle and I’m spending so much money to have people transcribe this as before we had AI transcription, but it was, was such a hassle, but now I’m like, that was totally worth it for those two people who are hearing impaired. Like I’m getting value out of that. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (36:10.871)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (36:20.022)
Yeah.
Brad Lowery (36:28.92)
There’s actually, there’s a home inspector down, I think he works with Super down in Dallas and he signs, so he speaks in ASL. Yep. I think he’s deaf or hard of hearing, but he signs. I’m like, man, having a home inspector that could reach the deaf community, that’s huge. I wish there was more representation for that. But making the show accessible, that’s awesome, man.
Tessa Murry (36:29.431)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (36:38.45)
Really? Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (36:51.442)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (36:55.361)
Yeah, it’s amazing.
Matt Brading (36:58.106)
I mean, obviously, if you’re hearing impaired, you’re hearing impaired, but I can’t imagine doing a home inspection without my ears.
Tessa Murry (37:05.901)
What a challenge. What a challenge that would be. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (37:08.168)
was thinking it, Matt. Yeah.
Matt Brading (37:10.746)
Look, this person’s probably incredible. mean, like, and let me tell you, like deaf people, blind people, they blow my mind all the time. Right. So I’m certain that there’s something I mean, yeah, there’s all kinds of stuff they can do. Like we can’t even touch. Right. But for me personally, when I’m thinking like, I was talking about having earbuds in earlier and like usually like I got them around here somewhere, but I have like
Tessa Murry (37:18.623)
for sure.
Tessa Murry (37:29.28)
Yeah.
Matt Brading (37:36.955)
Well, I have meta glasses, but I also have like some bone conduction ear ear. What do you call this? I don’t know. Not really headphones anyway, but what it does are open ear headphones, right? So I can still hear. And this is what’s important to me because there’s sometimes when I just want like a little bit of motivation music playing in my ear, but I also need to hear, need to hear when people walk in. I need to hear when water running or dripping. I need to hear when smoke is going off. Like, I don’t know. It’s like, imagine doing one without my ears. That would be, that’d be wild.
Tessa Murry (38:00.692)
Yeah. Yeah.
It would be hard.
Brad Lowery (38:07.188)
same way that we walk around the house with buyers and we verbally explain what we’re looking at to them, being able to sign to somebody that can understand is huge.
Matt Brading (38:15.614)
man. Yeah, I mean, that’s massive, right? I can imagine that like, if you’re able, at that point, like you should travel, you know, like getting multi-licensed and travel because like there are people that would pay a lot of money to have somebody explain. I guess it’s always in writing, but.
Tessa Murry (38:30.348)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (38:32.892)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (38:34.667)
Brad, you… yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, Matt. I was just gonna say, you should do a ride along with this hearing impaired inspector so we can all see how they do what they do. That’d be amazing.
Brad Lowery (38:45.006)
I’ve messaged him, yeah, yeah. So anyway, I was gonna say, don’t think he’s completely deaf, anyway, he’s somebody that I think would be really interesting to get on the show for sure. So, because he trains as well for Super. He does training for that for other inspectors. yep.
Tessa Murry (38:57.11)
Yeah.
Wow. Cool. Very cool. Neat.
Brad Lowery (39:03.906)
But yeah, mean, so all of this, Ruben, comes right back to just audiences and who you’re connecting with and the tools that we have with these podcasts to kind of reach people that you probably, when you launched the show, didn’t even realize were consuming the content.
Reuben Saltzman (39:16.83)
no, no way. No way. And this podcast was absolutely not intended for other home inspectors. It was intended for savvy homeowners and real estate agents. you know, we all the feedback we get is from other home inspectors. So that’s what it’s turned into. well, we still enjoy doing it. And we love the guests that we have on and we love the feedback that we get from other home inspectors because they’ve always got some very good insight, very good questions to ask. So.
Tessa Murry (39:32.141)
Thanks
Matt Brading (39:46.233)
Yeah, with our show, like, yeah, I like I think that the brunt of our audience is home inspectors, right? But I think like I know that like whenever I came on board, like I had ideas of trying to explain because I feel like we said it earlier in the episode. It’s niche, right? Home inspection is kind of a niche situation. But I feel like there’s so much with home inspection that like.
ties into construction, it ties into real estate, so many things that go together, and home ownership. And so somehow, if we can just kind of bridge that gap and try to make it palatable and exciting and entertaining for people that are not inspectors to want to listen to and watch, think it just expands our audience and allows us to get ourselves and our guests in front of more people.
Reuben Saltzman (40:36.296)
Yes.
Brad Lowery (40:36.302)
Well, I would say with, you know, nine, 300,000 followers on all platforms, Matt, you’re a great example of that. So.
Tessa Murry (40:36.834)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (40:42.737)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (40:44.37)
Love it. Love it.
Matt Brading (40:45.402)
Maybe it’s all inspectors.
Tessa Murry (40:45.673)
Nice.
Brad Lowery (40:48.456)
Yeah, right. There’s all 300,000 inspectors.
Tessa Murry (40:48.845)
You
Reuben Saltzman (40:52.094)
Yeah, I don’t think we have that many in the US, do we? No, no. What’s number you’ve heard? I’ve heard like 30,000 kicked around maybe.
Brad Lowery (40:54.86)
I don’t think we do.
Brad Lowery (41:00.214)
I’ve heard 30, but I wonder if it’s even that much. It’s an old number. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (41:00.397)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (41:02.568)
Yeah, that’s a generous number. Yeah.
Matt Brading (41:03.022)
Well, here’s the thing is, is like, there’s a lot of people that get licensed. It’s like real estate, right? They get licensed and they either never do anything with it or they can’t hang. once they get licensed. I mean, like we talked about this with Ashley Flores a couple of weeks ago, episode drop. mean, like it’s hard to start in the home inspection business. mean, like if you’re, especially if you’re going to start your own company, if you think you’re going to go out there and get your own business, like that’s a tough road to hoe.
Tessa Murry (41:03.478)
you
Tessa Murry (41:09.609)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (41:14.943)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (41:25.462)
I’m good.
Matt Brading (41:31.13)
And so you got a lot of work ahead of you. And so, you know, there’s a lot of people, whenever I got licensed, I, towards the end of my training, there were people in my field, I was still working like another job. Like I didn’t, I didn’t lose my job. There are people in training that a lot of the handful of them that were coming from oil and gas, they had lost their job. And so they were just trying to figure out like, what can I do? And so they decided to get training and do this. And it’s like, man, like you, you got to
Tessa Murry (41:32.034)
Yeah.
Matt Brading (42:00.792)
your work cut out for you to try to just earn business. You know, it’s gonna be very hard. So I’ve got a feeling like a lot of those people who are, mind you, used to raking in a bunch of money in oil and gas. Also, they’ve been unemployed for a little while, they get their license for home inspection, and things are gonna start doing that. And it’s probably a couple of years before they can actually start bringing something in. Shoot, the oil industry could turn around, and they just end up getting another job before they actually start doing any home inspection.
Reuben Saltzman (42:21.747)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (42:22.349)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (42:29.0)
yeah.
Matt Brading (42:29.838)
So think there’s a lot of people that just don’t cut it.
Reuben Saltzman (42:32.826)
I believe it. believe it. Well, guys, we’re near the end of our time segment here. Any other last thoughts we got before we end the show? Anything I should have asked you about we forgot about?
Tessa Murry (42:34.199)
think you’re
Brad Lowery (42:46.848)
inspectionfuel.com slash register. Come on out guys, you got a week left.
Reuben Saltzman (42:51.036)
Love it. Love it. I, I really wish I could be joining you guys. Well, have a wonderful conference. It sure would be nice to do both. I’ll tell you that.
Matt Brading (42:55.278)
Yeah, it’s a real bummer that you’re going to have to be in Hawaii. I mean, cannot believe you chose.
I would never choose Hawaii.
Reuben Saltzman (43:06.974)
I know, I know, I’m the worst, I’m the worst. Well, you guys have a wonderful conference. Thank you.
Brad Lowery (43:09.902)
Yeah, well we love your show Ruben, seriously. Ruben, thank you so much for having us on. This has been really great. We love listening to you guys, great friends as well. So it’s much appreciated having us on.
Reuben Saltzman (43:22.583)
Love having you guys on this has been a lot of fun and for our listeners if you got any thoughts questions comments concerns, whatever Please reach out to us. We read all the emails you can find us by emailing podcast at Structure tech comm and we will catch you next time. Take care
Matt Brading (43:24.428)
Thanks so much.
Tessa Murry (43:25.867)
and fun.