To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/FFgBErKxCHs
In this episode, Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry tackle a question that’s becoming increasingly common in the home inspection industry: Should home inspectors report cosmetic defects in new construction homes? From nail pops and scuff marks to drywall imperfections, they explore the growing expectations of homebuyers, the role of inspection standards, and whether inspectors should adapt their services to meet changing consumer demands. They also discuss builder performance guidelines, the balance between cosmetic concerns and material defects, and why this conversation could shape the future of new construction inspections
Takeaways
Homebuyers are placing greater emphasis on cosmetic imperfections in new construction homes.
Home inspectors must balance identifying material defects while managing client expectations.
Cosmetic issues such as nail pops, scuffs, and minor drywall imperfections are becoming a frequent source of concern.
Some inspection companies heavily document cosmetic defects, while others focus primarily on safety, performance, and structural issues.
Inspectors should clearly communicate the scope and limitations of a home inspection before beginning.
Industry standards of practice generally prioritize material defects over cosmetic concerns.
The National Association of Home Builders’ Residential Construction Performance Guidelines provide useful benchmarks for evaluating workmanship.
Performance guidelines distinguish between acceptable cosmetic imperfections and warrantable defects.
Many cosmetic defects are only considered excessive when visible under normal lighting from approximately six feet away.
Builders may have their own warranty standards, making expectations vary from one company to another.
Cosmetic walkthroughs could become an additional service offering, though they require significantly more inspection time.
Thorough inspections should continue to prioritize issues affecting safety, functionality, durability, and performance.
Client expectations continue to evolve, and inspection companies may need to adapt their services accordingly.
Listening to feedback and analyzing recurring client concerns can help improve inspection processes.
Ongoing conversations with builders and inspectors are essential for developing practical industry standards around cosmetic reporting.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates
04:19 Why Cosmetic Defects Are Becoming a Bigger Issue
06:22 Comparing Home Inspection Reports on New Construction
10:10 What Do Homebuyers Really Expect?
12:09 Existing Standards and Builder Performance Guidelines
17:10 Minnesota Statutes and Builder Responsibilities
20:33 Understanding Cosmetic Performance Standards
25:00 Builder Guidelines vs. Home Inspection Standards
27:18 Should Inspectors Document Cosmetic Defects?
31:27 Where Should Inspectors Draw the Line?
35:30 Meeting Client Expectations Without Expanding Scope
37:34 Looking Ahead: Continuing the Conversation
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben (00:01.498)
Welcome back to the show Tessa. How you doing today?
Tessa Murry (00:05.368)
Hey Reuben, I can’t complain. Hanging in there. Thirty weeks today, actually. Thirty weeks pregnant. Ten more weeks to go. We’re in the third trimester and I will be flying tomorrow. So hopefully I have an aisle seat.
Reuben (00:10.546)
30 weeks. man.
Reuben (00:22.99)
I hope you do too. You don’t know. Okay. You’re gonna get your feet when you get there.
Tessa Murry (00:26.158)
I don’t know. I’m I’m cheap, so I’m like just you know, I don’t want to pay an extra twenty bucks to pick my seat. I’m like just put me wherever and so we’ll find out tomorrow. But I no that I looked on the flight, there’s lots of empty seats. I’m not too worried about it. I think I’ll I’ll be fine and if not, I could probably move. So people take pity on s on you when you’re, you know, pregnant. So
Reuben (00:34.469)
Tasta, you’re pregnant. I’ll pay the 20 bucks for you, okay?
Reuben (00:48.165)
Okay.
Reuben (00:51.858)
Yeah, I trade seats with you and in a heartbeat. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (00:54.92)
Or they just don’t wanna have to get up twenty times, you know, to let me out to go to the bathroom. So
Reuben (00:57.2)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, when I was in the field doing home inspections, every time there would be an obviously pregnant woman showing up to the house. One thing I’ve always heard, I’ve heard you never ever comment on a woman being pregnant. You never ask, you never say anything. I mean, unless you actually see the baby coming out, you’re not allowed to comment. But so whenever I’d see a woman who was obviously pregnant,
Tessa Murry (01:22.99)
Yeah.
Reuben (01:25.518)
One of the first things I’d say when they show up, I say, yeah, Ruba, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if you need to use the bathroom at all or anything you’re welcome to, I’d show where it was. I’d make sure there’s toilet paper in their forum just cause it’s like, remember when my wife was pregnant, like, like having to go to the bathroom nonstop. I could only imagine.
Tessa Murry (01:39.116)
Very kind of you.
Yeah. yeah. It’s constant. It’s constant. Constant pressure on the bladder. So that is a that’s very thoughtful of you and I’m sure that gave them some relief. Pun intended.
Reuben (01:54.257)
Yeah, and very good. And that’s just a tip for any home inspectors listening. I’m sure any pregnant clients of yours would appreciate.
Tessa Murry (02:03.715)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would be nice. Yeah. Well, so how are you doing, Ruben, before we get into the show? Anything new with you?
Reuben (02:10.53)
I I’m good. Life is good. Not spending any time outside at the moment. As we’re recording, there are some forest fires in the boundary waters area, apparently. And I’ve never seen it this bad in my life. Like every time there’s fires, you know, they’ve got air quality alerts, you shouldn’t go outside. And I scoff at them.
Tessa Murry (02:25.964)
We heard about that.
Really?
Tessa Murry (02:34.474)
Yeah, yeah.
Reuben (02:37.316)
I’m like, yeah, well, I’m playing disc golf today and I go do my thing. And, know, it’s not that big of a deal, but I’m actually taking this one seriously. You walk outside and it feels like you’re standing in front of a campfire. Like it is bad. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (02:46.456)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (02:51.185)
my goodness. Wow. Wow. How long is it? I guess you don’t know how long it’s projected to last, but probably for a while, huh?
Reuben (03:00.294)
Well, there’s this website thing that we’ve been tracking and it’s got a forecaster and it said tomorrow it will affect people who are compromised. and we’re recording on a Thursday by the way. And they say by Saturday, it’s supposed to be good. And I hope it is because we got the annual structure tech picnic on Saturday and
Tessa Murry (03:05.56)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (03:15.576)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (03:24.926)
yeah, that would be nice.
Reuben (03:28.44)
Yeah. And Mindy was just asking me, what if we do, what do we do if it’s like this? I mean, we can’t have everybody outside. We’re going to your house, Ruben. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t think so. I don’t have enough room for that many people because you know, it’s family and kids and all that. So fingers crossed.
Tessa Murry (03:36.053)
No.
No.
Yeah, man.
Wow, that’s a bummer. I s yeah. It’s it’s hot there too, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be in the nineties, I think, for you tomorrow. Or it has been.
Reuben (03:55.75)
We’ve had upper 90s for a few days now. It’s been really nice. I mean, I enjoy it. Not everybody does. I get that. it’s been warm. It’s been really warm. Yeah, a little taste of Florida.
Tessa Murry (03:59.699)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well it’s a hot, smoky summer in Minnesota.
Reuben (04:12.604)
Yes, yes, exactly. So not bad.
Tessa Murry (04:14.35)
Well, so what’s our sh what’s our podcast topic today, Ruben? What’s our show gonna be on?
Reuben (04:19.846)
Well, on on the last show, we we talked about having Eric come on again and talk about some of the craziest complaints we’ve had. He’s got his top 10 list, but I screwed up on the scheduling for like a couple of weeks. We were going to do it last week and I couldn’t pull it together. And then this week it didn’t work and next week I’m to be out of town. So, okay. Good. Good. Well then I don’t need to feel guilty about that.
Tessa Murry (04:42.21)
Me too. Me too.
No podcast next week. Yeah.
Reuben (04:48.196)
No podcast next week and no Eric this week, but I I’ve been thinking a lot about our last topic. And maybe it was several weeks ago. We had talked about how there’s been an increase in the number of complaints on new construction homes. And the vast majority is cosmetic stuff, like people being whipped up about.
Tessa Murry (04:59.362)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (05:11.298)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben (05:16.068)
scratches and drywall, think Eric may have mentioned somebody had complained about scratches on their cabinet knobs. Like the cabinet knobs were not perfect. It was things like this. And I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I mean, on the show, I said, I think part of this is all these home inspectors doing their vertical videos, their 30 second reels and whatever, pointing out.
Tessa Murry (05:30.862)
Mm.
Reuben (05:43.128)
all of these blemishes that they’re finding on new construction. you know, Eric had mentioned on the show, like, we’re looking for real problems and
These are problems in people’s minds. I mean, people do care about this stuff. It’s not to minimize all this cosmetic stuff. But when we’re doing a home inspection, we’re really not looking at cosmetics. So why are so many people all of a sudden getting whipped up about cosmetics? I’ve been I’ve been given a lot of thought to this lately. And I thought I’d start out by just kind of sharing what what
Tessa Murry (05:57.401)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (06:03.075)
Right.
Tessa Murry (06:08.194)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (06:15.404)
Yeah.
Reuben (06:22.416)
What are other people doing? And I remember us doing a secret shop on another home inspection company. was, there was some people I knew who were hiring us to do an 11 month warranty inspection. I knew them. And I said, you know what, do me a favor. I want you to also hire a competitor of mine and I want you to have them inspect your new construction house.
And I want us to do it. And I’m not telling them we’re doing it. And I’m not telling my home inspector we’re doing it. This is just this is just a blind comparison. What are we doing? What are they doing? And just for fun, I pulled up that report. And now we had our standard report. You know, we we came up with a good list of stuff, none of which was cosmetic. But when I look at the other inspectors report, I’m going to just go over
Tessa Murry (07:01.069)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (07:13.75)
Well
Reuben (07:21.65)
the summary quick here. We’ve got exterior coating cracked, and they’re referring to the, on the foundation, you’re gonna have insulation on the outside, and then you’ve got this little trowel coat of mortar. And they mentioned there was cracks in the trowel coat of mortar, which I wouldn’t even mention. I mean, the-
Tessa Murry (07:35.422)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (07:44.61)
That’s on the sum this is the summary page. So it’s highlighting kind of the most important takeaways from this inspection. Okay. Okay.
Reuben (07:49.935)
Exactly. Yeah, but I wouldn’t even mention that. I mean, the mortar is just there to protect the insulation from UV breakdown. The cracks are inconsequential. We’ve got drywall work. Yeah, we’ve got drywall work not finished. And I looked up the photo of this and I can’t even tell what’s not finished by the photo. I mean, if I if I was going to guess, I’d say a little bit of the ceiling texture.
Tessa Murry (07:55.854)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (07:59.437)
Yeah.
Yeah. A structural issue.
Tessa Murry (08:09.294)
Hmm.
Reuben (08:18.972)
came down a little bit onto the wall. It looks like it’s like maybe it doesn’t look perfect, but I couldn’t tell from the photo. Another one says in a bedroom, we’ve got a scuff and then we’ve got nail pop and then we’ve got scuff. Then we got nail pop. We got scuff. We got drywall work, not finished. Nail pop, settling crack, nail pop. That’s the whole report Tessa.
Tessa Murry (08:25.954)
Yeah. Huh.
Tessa Murry (08:48.854)
That’s the but that’s the summary? I mean that I that’s all they found? That’s literally I mean that’s that’s the worst of what they found. Sounds like a pretty nice house to me.
Reuben (08:51.004)
That’s the summary.
That’s all they found.
Wait, there’s one other item I skipped over Filters are dirty. They had dirty furnace filters which You know, that’s that’s not a builders thing. It’s just homeowner maintenance, but that was the whole thing and so What they paid for was all? cosmetic documentation
Tessa Murry (09:08.151)
Okay.
Okay.
Tessa Murry (09:14.67)
Might yeah.
Tessa Murry (09:22.014)
Well, unless there wasn’t any other issues. So I’m curious, what did structure text report find? What
Reuben (09:26.342)
Well, I’m telling you there was. Well, I don’t want to muddy the waters with what we found. I mean, we found important stuff. And it was just as long of it was a longer list of defects with the home, real things that were wrong, not just things that are cosmetic. These are all cosmetic things.
Tessa Murry (09:36.523)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (09:44.406)
Okay. Okay.
Tessa Murry (09:50.359)
Well then that’s to me that’s disturbing because you’ve got inspectors out there that don’t know how to find the defects. They’re just pointing out the obvious things. And are they training are they training people and clients to to care more about that? Because that’s all that they’re reporting on and inspecting.
Reuben (10:00.176)
That’s, yeah, and I…
Reuben (10:10.45)
And that’s, that was how I felt. But as I’ve, as I’ve given this more time, I’m thinking, maybe this is what people want. Maybe this, this is what consumers want out of a home inspection. Maybe they want the home inspector to find all this stuff and document it.
Tessa Murry (10:31.32)
Okay. I don’t think it’s one or the other, Ruben. I think I think you’re right with that with that thinking as well. I think people need to know about the defects and that’s our job to teach them about things that they don’t know, that they don’t know, right? That’s why they hire us for our expertise in these things that they don’t see or they don’t understand. But I think people do care about the cosmetics, especially in new construction. Personally, if I was buying a new house today and I’m spending
four, five, six, seven hundred, whatever thousand dollars on a house and I walk in and I see all these nail pops and these scuffs on the walls and everything. It’s and it’s supposed to be brand new. I’m paying half a million plus for it. Like, I don’t I I want it to be near perfect. It should be, right?
Reuben (11:18.492)
Yeah, Agreed. But, but how? But but then of course, begs the question, how perfect is perfect? I mean, how nitpicky do you have the right to be about stuff you’re looking at? mean, you everybody knows if you walk up to any wall, new, old, expensive, cheap, whatever.
Tessa Murry (11:21.294)
So so maybe both. Both both are important.
Tessa Murry (11:30.274)
Right.
Tessa Murry (11:39.17)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:43.574)
Yeah.
Reuben (11:46.865)
You put a flashlight flat against the wall and you shine it down the wall. You’re gonna see all kinds of imperfections. I mean, you’re gonna see everywhere they patched, you’re gonna see the wall isn’t perfectly straight. You’re gonna see every little thing that’s wrong with it. Should you expect not to see that? And how do we know?
Tessa Murry (11:53.58)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (12:09.932)
Well, you bring up a good point. And I mean, as home inspectors, we have a standards of practice that most inspectors adopt from, you know, a national organization that gives us guidelines on, okay, here’s what we inspect and here’s how you report on it. And we can, you know, reference manufacturer specifications for saying this is okay or not okay, things like that. But if you’re talking about kind of a a category that that’s completely excluded from our SLP.
Right. So so I know you’ve done research on this. Are there some ty is there some type of guideline out there that home inspectors could look at or could follow that builders might be using that would give us some sort of reference to determining what’s acceptable or not?
Reuben (12:57.132)
Yes, yes, Tessa. I don’t know if builders actually use this, then this is where I thought I need to get a builder on the show. So we’re gonna have a follow-up to this, but the one document that I have referenced, I haven’t really referenced it much, but I’ve always had it in my pocket. I look at it every now and then is a document. Let me pull it up here so I don’t.
Tessa Murry (13:10.542)
Okay.
Reuben (13:27.238)
botch the title of it here. This is put out by the National Association of Home Builders and it’s called the Residential Construction Performance Guidelines for Professional Builders and Remodelers. And the current edition, which was published in 2022, is the sixth edition, which I actually in preparation for this podcast, I just purchased it.
Tessa Murry (13:44.706)
Hm. Okay.
Reuben (13:56.221)
The one that I had, excuse me, the one that I had had in my pocket was the fourth edition, which was in a PDF format, very portable, portable document format. That’s what PDF stands for. so I, yes. So it was very handy, but they no longer offer it in that format. I had to download this e-reader from Adobe.
Tessa Murry (13:56.994)
Well
Tessa Murry (14:02.178)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (14:06.498)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (14:11.03)
I did not know that.
Tessa Murry (14:19.703)
Reuben (14:22.606)
And it is super obnoxious because as you scroll through the pages, you have to take a drag bar and you need to drag it horizontally. You can’t use the wheel on your mouse to go through pages, which I am more bothered than I should be by. so there is, my point is there is a document. Now the question is, do all builders subscribe to this? Do they follow the standard?
Tessa Murry (14:48.714)
Right. Well yeah. Right. Because this is not this is not code by any means, right? This is not code at all. This is just some some document that NAHB put together that’s out there that seemingly gives some guidelines for quality of craftsmanship. That’s acceptable.
Reuben (14:53.915)
No, no.
Reuben (15:00.421)
huh.
Reuben (15:06.106)
Yes. Yes. And in my mind, and you know, maybe a builder is going to come on the show and correct me, but in my mind, it kind of seems like home inspection standards of practice, like you just referenced where a home inspector, if you’re in an unlicensed state, like Minnesota, we don’t need to follow anything, but we probably should. mean, to be consistent and here at StructureTech. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (15:28.034)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Liability reasons. Yeah.
Reuben (15:35.613)
for liability reasons. Here at StructureTech, all of our inspectors are members of ASHE, the American Society of Home Inspectors. So we follow the ASHE standard of practice for a home inspection. We follow all of those standards and of course we exceed them. But that sets the minimum floor. That is our agreement. That is the agreed upon standard between us and our client. We will follow the standard. So the question is, do builders have a standard that they…
Tessa Murry (15:51.767)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (15:59.907)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben (16:04.46)
Should or do follow and I mean, I know there’s at least one maybe there’s more of them out there So
Tessa Murry (16:10.562)
Yeah. Yeah. No, I’m very curious. I’m very curious. I wish we could take a poll right now of all the builders, national and, you know, more custom and see what they do. I I you know, I think it would from what I’ve heard it sounds like just with challenges of finding skilled labor and trades and everything like that, I would think that the the
Some of these standards would be hard to meet these days.
Reuben (16:41.714)
Yeah, yeah, I agree Tess. I agree. And so to further this discussion, though, I did a little digging into like what’s actually required in Minnesota. And I’m going to pull up a Minnesota statute related to all of me back up here and get it right related to licensing requirements for residential building contractors.
Tessa Murry (16:54.445)
Okay.
Reuben (17:10.578)
and what they have to do. And one interesting section I found in the Minnesota statutes, it’s section 326B.809. And it says written contract required.
And one of the items, one, no, item three, I don’t know which, it’s item B. It says, before entering into an agreement, the licensees shall provide a prospective customer with written performance guidelines for the services to be performed.
Reuben (17:54.471)
What does that mean? The contractor needs to give the customer written performance guidelines for the services performed. So what are these written performance guidelines? If not a residential construction performance guidelines such as that produced by the National Association of Home Builders. It seems like this is exactly what it’s referencing, but I don’t.
Tessa Murry (17:57.454)
Clear as mud.
Tessa Murry (18:06.477)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (18:20.386)
Wait, so are you reading from a Minnesota building code? Is that what this is?
Reuben (18:24.018)
Minnesota statutes, it’s not the building code these are statutes well The statue Well, it’s basically rules that you need to follow it’s it’s it’s laws
Tessa Murry (18:27.724)
Okay. What’s the difference? I what’s a I don’t understand what the Minnesota statutes are.
Tessa Murry (18:44.352)
Okay. Okay.
Reuben (18:46.29)
And, if I remember right, okay. Now I don’t remember because I took a course many years ago. It was probably, it was probably in 2020, 2004, 2005. And it was titled the legal aspects of code administration. And it was all about.
Tessa Murry (19:02.507)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (19:08.738)
my goodness. I’m impressed you can even remember the name of the classroom.
Reuben (19:12.262)
I do. I took this through North Hennepin Community College. I mean, I took a lot of classes through them on being a building official. And this was just following the legal standards. And I wish I had a building official on here because there’s a difference between a statute and a rule. And I’m almost positive it’s the rules that adopt the building code and say that
Tessa Murry (19:17.662)
Wow. Yeah. Hmm.
Tessa Murry (19:32.205)
Yeah.
Reuben (19:40.634)
This is law. This is how you need to do it. Whatever it is, the statutes Are supposed to be followed. I’m pretty sure It’s it’s kept forth the rule I I don’t know. I don’t
Tessa Murry (19:43.671)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (19:50.543)
Right. Well and who enforces who enforces that? I mean, who’s going through and be like, did you provide your client with a written contract that tells them how you’re gonna finish this drywall? You know, like
Reuben (20:04.818)
I don’t know. And you know, I might, I might get a building official on here to talk about this, but the, but the bottom line is you’re supposed to have some type of standard. And if not this document that we just referenced, I don’t know what that standard would be. So we, we’ve got, we’ve got a standard that could be followed and just for fun tests. I thought it might be fun if I could share my screen.
Tessa Murry (20:12.277)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (20:23.479)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben (20:33.394)
And we go over some of these standards that they have for into your finishes, cosmetics. Okay. Let’s do it. We’ll read them aloud here. So for anybody watching this on YouTube, you can see the very boring and small text that I’m going to put on the screen for anybody else. I’ll just read it. You don’t need to actually see it. let’s see if I can.
Tessa Murry (20:39.104)
I’d love to see. Yeah, I’d love to see some examples.
Reuben (21:01.564)
Find it, here we are. No, it’s gotta be this one. All right, Tessa, you should be able to see it now. We are looking at the standards. And I thought I’d just go over a couple of them. Number one, if someone finds nail pops that are visible on a finished wall or ceiling, that’s the observation. And they follow the same pattern here. They say, what’s the observation?
Tessa Murry (21:10.87)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (21:16.332)
Okay.
Reuben (21:28.432)
What is the performance guideline? What’s the corrective measure? And then sometimes they have some discussion about them. So the performance guideline says nail pops are a defect only when there are signs of spackle compound cracking or falling away. So if you can see a pop but it hasn’t actually broken the surface, you can just see the outline of the nail. That’s not a defect. But if it breaks the spackling compound,
Tessa Murry (21:34.754)
Huh.
Tessa Murry (21:52.654)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (21:56.034)
My gosh.
Reuben (21:56.509)
cracking it or falls away, that’s a defect. so how did they, go ahead.
Tessa Murry (21:59.609)
That’s the Yeah. I was just saying the level of detail in this manual, whoever put this together, God bless them.
Reuben (22:09.202)
They spent a lot of time. This is a 105 page document.
Tessa Murry (22:11.177)
my goodness. man. Wow. Okay.
Reuben (22:15.376)
Yeah. So what’s the corrective measure? It says one time only during the warning warranty period, the contractor will fix it. I’m not going to read all the text, but they’ll fix it one time during during a one year warranty period. Another one. Let’s see here. blisters or other blemishes are fixed on a finished wall or ceiling. And I’ve read a bunch of it. And this also applies to say, brush marks.
Tessa Murry (22:24.886)
Right. Okay.
Tessa Murry (22:39.288)
Yeah.
Reuben (22:42.874)
If you can see brush marks on a ceiling or roller texture, brush marks on a wall, roller texture on a wall, this type of thing. This, this language appears a lot. says any such blemishes that are readily visible from a standing position facing the surface at a distance of six feet under normal lighting conditions. not taking your flashlight and holding it up against the wall.
Tessa Murry (22:43.384)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (22:48.753)
my gosh.
Tessa Murry (23:11.766)
Right.
Reuben (23:12.634)
It just needs to be normal lighting conditions standing six feet away. If you can see the defect, it’s considered excessive. So if you got to come closer than six feet to see this defect, it’s acceptable.
Tessa Murry (23:21.185)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (23:28.94)
So what’s the corrective measure if it’s quote excessive?
Reuben (23:33.042)
They gotta fix it. The corrective measure, says one time only. Go ahead and read it, Tess, you can see it.
Tessa Murry (23:34.666)
One time only. Okay. Repair it. Touch up paint. It just says, yeah, one time only during the warranty period, the contractor will repair the blemishes. Contractor will touch up paint on repaired areas if the contractor was responsible for the original interior painting. Okay. And it talks about matching the paint and repairing the defects.
Reuben (23:54.643)
This is interesting though. It says a perfect match between the original and new paint cannot be expected and the contractors not required to paint an entire wall or room Well, you and I both know after a year you go to touch up that paint You’re gonna you’re gonna see it doesn’t match Yeah, I don’t even know if I’d want that done
Tessa Murry (24:01.504)
Yeah. Required to paint more room.
Yeah. Yeah. You’ll see it. Yeah. Yeah.
No, it just the amount of detail and I mean however they figured out you’ve got to be six feet away, normal lighting, and that also putting, you know, in here that you can’t expect the paint to match a year later. just the amount of time that went into it, the dil I’m sure the deliberation on how to handle all these tiny little issues. There must have been like a panel of builders that put this together because these this is coming from experience, it sounds like.
Reuben (24:41.979)
for sure.
Yep, And and just give you a pretty an appreciation for what’s covered in here I’m gonna go to the gosh. I do not like this reader Tessa. my goodness
Tessa Murry (24:46.808)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (24:57.718)
It’s tough to navigate here with the little scroll bar. I see what you’re talking about.
Reuben (25:00.53)
It is. So the, the stuff that they cover, we’ve got foundation and then within foundation, you have several subcategories. got interior floor construction consisting of the floor system, beams, columns, and posts, subfloor and joists. You got walls and ceilings.
Tessa Murry (25:03.446)
Okay.
Reuben (25:18.78)
can’t navigate this test. got exterior finish, roof, plumbing, electrical, interior climate, control. You got interior finish.
Tessa Murry (25:19.985)
they even have landscaping.
Tessa Murry (25:31.79)
Wow.
Reuben (25:32.275)
You’ve got flooring, miscellaneous and landscaping. So these are all things that are considered within this document. and, you know, if, if you’re a home builder, you could kind of say, this is, this is my guidebook on what is and isn’t covered by warranty. However, my thought is if you’re going with a big builder, like, you know, I’m just going to say Lenar, for instance, that’s, that’s a big one that I think of off the top of my head.
Tessa Murry (25:58.223)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Reuben (26:02.822)
Perhaps Lennar has their own internal set of guidelines on what they will and won’t cover for warranty.
Tessa Murry (26:08.558)
Yeah, yeah. I I
Reuben (26:12.518)
I don’t know, but if you’re a smaller local builder, I would assume that you wouldn’t have taken the time to create a comprehensive document like this.
Tessa Murry (26:22.206)
No. No. So, you know, it’d be interesting to take a poll of home inspectors too across the country and and see how many home inspectors are reporting on these cosmetic quote defects or, you know, concerns. and to what extent and then how do they determine if it’s a defect or not in their report? because it it does seem like this is becoming more and more of a
topic of concern with buyers and probably all I mean, maybe always has been, but now it’s really at the forefront, it seems like. And so what what are we supposed to do with this? I mean, you’ve discovered this guideline that’s out there. We don’t know how many builders are following it or what they do about it. but for our industry, we need some sort of guidance, it seems like, on navigating this.
Reuben (27:18.48)
Yeah, and it made me think, gosh, people care so much about these cosmetics. mean, what I’ve told my team recently is bring a roll of blue tape to every one of your inspections and make it clear to your client that you’re not there to comment on scuffs and scrapes and scratches, things that anybody can see. I mean, if it’s going to bother you, you can see it.
You’re not hiring us to find that stuff. Give them a roll of blue tape and say, look, if you got stuff that you got issues with market and bring it up to your builder or talk to your real estate agent about all of these things and make it clear that we’re not there to document all that. But I’m starting to think, I mean, maybe we should. What if, what if we did? mean, it would take a lot more time.
Tessa Murry (27:47.01)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (28:06.71)
What are they Yeah? I was gonna say, I mean, well, in the in a in if I’m putting myself in a consumer’s shoes or a buyer’s shoes and they you know I hire an inspection company to come inspect this brand new house I’m spending half a million on and their report has nothing in there about huge scuff marks on walls I saw, nail pops, cracks and things. I would be a little bit frustrated. So I’m like w
I just spent hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands whatever, on this inspection and you’re giving me all this information, but like I’m seeing issues that you didn’t put in your report at all. what am I what am I paying you for?
Reuben (28:52.016)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I’m I’m just I haven’t come to a conclusion about it, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. And I mean, part of part of this podcast is I know there’s a lot of other home inspectors who listen to this. I’m I’m curious what what other home inspectors do. I mean, it takes us the full amount of a home inspection slot to inspect a new construction home.
Tessa Murry (29:01.976)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:13.4)
Yeah.
Reuben (29:21.464)
looking for real material defects, things that are going to affect the performance and safety and functionality and durability of the home. We’re not spending our time looking at all this cosmetic stuff, we could, I mean, I feel like we could easily spend another two hours at every one documenting all of these cosmetic things, but we couldn’t do it for the same price.
Tessa Murry (29:33.228)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:42.478)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:46.328)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. it’s curio yeah, what are other inspectors doing out there? We’d love to hear from you. Send us an email or reach out. I wanna know ’cause I I mean it seems like it could be something that people expect it, but like you said, it’s definitely not in our standards of practice and it would add a bunch of time. So is it something that you could offer as an additional add on?
Like we offer cosmetic walkthroughs with you and document, you know, things that you would bring up to your your builder, you know, at a final walkthrough. We can do that for you. Take that off your plate. here are the examples of things we look for. Boom, boom, boom. And that would be an additional fee. But I don’t know. If every other home inspection company out there is just doing that.
Reuben (30:34.192)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (30:43.68)
And that is their inspection. Well then good luck trying to sell that service for an extra fee. So I don’t know. I d need more information. It’s it’s interesting.
Reuben (30:49.084)
Yes. Yes.
Reuben (30:54.034)
But I mean, I know of at least one company in the Twin Cities here who it’s like that it seems like that’s all they’re doing. There’s hardly anything else in the report that’s meaningful.
Tessa Murry (30:59.96)
That’s what they’re doing.
Tessa Murry (31:05.134)
Mm.
That’s concerning. Yeah. No, that’s concerning. Right. Well, and again, a client doesn’t know what they don’t know. So if it’s something that they’re unaware of and they can’t see it and they’re uneducated, that’s why they’re hiring the expert, then they don’t realize that they’re missing out on a lot of important information that really matters. Yeah.
Reuben (31:08.828)
but they’re not telling the client staff.
Reuben (31:27.74)
Yeah. Yeah. And, to be clear, it’s not like we don’t ever comment on cosmetic stuff. I mean, if there’s a big old scratch in the, in the granite countertop, like, yeah, we’ll take a picture of it. We’ll put it in the report. I mean, if it’s nasty, if it’s stuff where it’s like, look at it under this light, you can see if you get your head just right. It’s like, okay, you bring that up to the builder. But if there’s a big old scratch, sure. Cracked tiles.
Tessa Murry (31:45.282)
Yeah, or like cracked tiles or yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:50.995)
Yeah.
Right.
Reuben (31:57.649)
Yeah, that could affect the performance. We’re going to put that in there. I mean, it’s so tough to know where to draw the line. And if the home inspector is documenting stuff that would be excluded by this performance guideline book, does it even belong?
Tessa Murry (31:58.102)
Right.
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (32:17.634)
Right. Right.
Yeah. That’s that’s a tough question. Well
Reuben (32:22.802)
that.
Yeah, it was a tough one. So I’m raising a bunch of questions in this podcast test and hopefully I’m just shedding some light on the fact that there are performance guidelines that builders can follow. And if home inspectors want to down, you know, buy the book, it was like 35 bucks for the PDF. You could download that and put it in your pocket, but then does it have any teeth? Does it actually matter? Don’t know.
Tessa Murry (32:30.283)
Right.
Tessa Murry (32:37.429)
Right. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (32:50.902)
Right.
Right. Well, and I think sometimes too it probably depends on your your client and their price point as well. and kind of what’s what expectation they have. You know, if you’re talking custom home, million dollar home versus a, you know, builder’s grade town home for three hundred or two hundred or whatever, do you still have the same got you know, same expectations and same
Reuben (33:08.774)
Yeah.
Reuben (33:18.28)
yeah, yeah, totally.
Tessa Murry (33:23.767)
Reporting?
Reuben (33:25.126)
Yeah, I mean, I remember, I remember there was this house where I was chatting with the builder and you know, they were just kind of bragging up what they were doing and on every door, you know, you got the casing going around the door and they would, they’re using a flat casing and they would get it all those joints, all super nicely filled. They sanded it down.
Tessa Murry (33:31.873)
I think
Reuben (33:50.469)
Until there was absolutely no seam whatsoever. They put a couple coats of paint on it to the point where it was one glass surface. I mean, you could see your reflection in it even in even in the seams and it all looked like one solid piece of wood and they did that for all of the trim in the entire home and it’s like, okay, that’s the level of detail you’re getting. That’s what you can expect, but
Tessa Murry (34:02.392)
No.
Reuben (34:19.856)
you go buy a $300,000 house and you ain’t getting anything like that. I mean, they’ll try to get the miters to line up with each other and they’ll call it good. And it’s like, well, where do I come in? Where do I have anything to say about this?
Tessa Murry (34:31.451)
Try keyword. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. For frame of reference too, this is the year twenty twenty six and it’s hard to buy a new house for less than three hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you’ve you’ve been thinking about some good things, Ruben, and I see the see the the smoke coming out of the ears. The wheels are turning. And
Reuben (34:50.352)
Yes, yes, thank you. Very important. Yeah. All right.
Tessa Murry (35:04.376)
It’ll be interesting to kinda talk to hopefully some some builders, it sounds like, that’s in pro process and maybe some other home inspectors to kind of see what everybody’s doing.
Reuben (35:14.002)
Yeah, I think I’m going to be on this kick for a little while.
Tessa Murry (35:17.278)
Yeah, yeah, I could I can see that. You’re going down a rabbit hole, but it’s it’s one that I think needs to be explored a little bit more, especially if it’s the source of a lot of complaints coming in these days.
Reuben (35:30.653)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got to, we got to get that sorted out. want people delighted with our service. want to set the right expectations, but something I’ve always done is like, if people expect this, don’t give them a whole bunch of legal disclaimers to bring their expectation down to here, figure out what can we do to rise to those expectations? And that’s, I don’t, that’s what I want to do here.
Tessa Murry (35:39.267)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (35:52.29)
Yeah.
Right.
Tessa Murry (36:00.149)
Well and to I mean, as an example, I’m just thinking about how when Structure Tech added a bunch of kind of additional testing to like appliances because a huge source of I remember complaints and callbacks was like, Hey, my my clothes washer’s not draining properly or my dryer’s not working right or my microwave’s not heating up enough or my fridge isn’t cold enough. And so, you know, structure tech kind of
created its own standards of practice and went beyond the standard SOP, Ashy SOP and, you know, had our own protocol for how we would test and document all those appliances. I and there was pushback within the team because it, you know, anytime you introduce something new that requires additional testing and time, it’s like, you know, we’re already doing so much. but it was just it’s what clients expected. And it was a source of a lot of complaints. And so I mean, this is kind of it sounds like
the new front with new construction. It’s like, okay, people have these expectations. We’re getting a lot of complaints. Do we need to adjust for this new market?
Reuben (37:05.36)
Yeah. Yeah. If there was something I could do where it would take an extra 10 minutes during the inspection and we’d be cool, then we’d do it. But that’s not what this is. This is like significantly increasing the scope of the home inspection. If we’re going to say, cosmetic stuff is going to be included. So.
Tessa Murry (37:17.218)
This is different. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (37:21.612)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (37:26.572)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Different animal. Well, stay tuned. I’m curious to hear what you find out. Keep us posted.
Reuben (37:28.87)
Don’t know, don’t know where we’re going with this.
Reuben (37:34.608)
Yeah. All right. Yeah, we’ll do more podcasts on it. We will interview people on here. We’ll get some answers.
Tessa Murry (37:40.48)
Yeah. That sounds good. Stay tuned. It won’t be next week. It’ll be in the following weeks.
Reuben (37:43.794)
All right. It will not be next week. Yeah, we’ll be we’ll be we’re having a tough time coordinating schedules this summer, but we’re not going away. We’ll be back at some point.
Tessa Murry (37:54.262)
It’s a it’s a busy year. Busy time of year.
Reuben (37:56.858)
It is a big year. All right. Well Tessa, thank you so much. Always a pleasure. And you’re going to be two weeks closer next time we record. It’ll be great. Safe travels.
Tessa Murry (38:02.67)
Good to see you, Ruben.
Tessa Murry (38:08.098)
my god. Thank you so much. Thank you. And if people want to reach out to us, Ruben, and give us some feedback, what how do they how do they reach us?
Reuben (38:21.436)
Please email us. is podcast at structuretech.com and we will catch you next time. Take care.
Tessa Murry (38:29.721)
Thanks for listening.