To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/LzP_zb7BsGQ
In this episode, Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry discuss various common home inspection issues, focusing on the top five problems that often arise in older homes. They delve into the importance of water management, electrical safety, chimney maintenance, gas leak concerns, and sewer problems. The conversation highlights the importance of home buyers being aware of these issues and adjusting their expectations when purchasing older properties.
Here’s the link to check out Inspector Empire Builder:
https://events.iebcoaching.com/events
You can find more information on Tessa’s website here:
https://www.yourhousecoach.com/
Takeaways:
Tessa is feeling better after a month of illness.
Summer brings challenges with kids at home.
Common home inspection issues can apply to many areas.
Water management problems are critical for home safety.
Unprotected overhead electric wires pose serious hazards.
Masonry chimneys require regular maintenance and inspection.
Gas leaks are more common than expected in home inspections.
Sewer problems can lead to expensive repairs.
Home buyers should reset their expectations regarding property conditions.
There is no such thing as a perfect house.
Chapters:
00:00 Summer Vibes and Health Updates
07:20 Home Inspection Stories and Experiences
07:50 Top Home Inspection Issues
11:26 Water Management Problems
17:13 Electrical Safety Concerns
21:33 Masonry Chimney Challenges
22:36 The Hidden Costs of Chimney Maintenance
31:30 Understanding Gas Leaks and Their Risks
37:32 Sewer Problems: A Costly Concern
40:50 Common Issues in Older Homes
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman (00:01.162)
Welcome back to the show. Tessa, how you doing today?
Tessa Murry (00:05.797)
Ruben, I can honestly say I’m feeling the best I’ve felt in probably a month. We were talking about this off air. We’ll spare our listeners, but yeah, it’s just been one thing, one bug after another. Stomach bug, sinus infection of the millennia. Finally have some antibiotics and I’m feeling, feeling so much better. So yay. How are you doing? How are you doing?
Reuben Saltzman (00:11.598)
That is fantastic.
Reuben Saltzman (00:27.01)
So glad to hear that. You know, I’m I’m kind of in the same boat just getting over a little something a little stomach flu or something. I don’t know. But I know it’s not fair. But yeah. Yeah, I was down for about a day. I was fine. I’ve been functional the rest of the week, but just you know, at like 80 to 90 percent, like it’s enough to let me know this is not full capacity.
Tessa Murry (00:37.358)
And you never get sick.
You have to suffer like the rest of us humans.
Tessa Murry (00:52.805)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (00:56.263)
Yep. Well, you’re, you’re, I was going to say you’re 80 or 90 % as most people’s 100%. I would take it. It’s true.
Reuben Saltzman (00:56.45)
But that’s okay. That’s okay. We’re here now.
Reuben Saltzman (01:02.926)
That’s sweet of you. It’s not. Summer has begun. We are officially on summer. Whatever at my house now, because kids are out of school and, know, with with having my kids home, Si and Lucy, it’s like. I had forgotten how inefficient I am when I got the two teenagers coming into my office all day like.
Tessa Murry (01:26.983)
Yeah. They have to be in your office in and out all day. It’s the one room in the house they need to be in. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (01:33.186)
Yes, yes, just just the interruptions constantly. man. Whenever whenever it’s time to go back to school, I do remember like that first day where they’re back at school. It’s like the most efficient workday I’ve ever had. But yeah, I like having them around, though. So I’m not complaining. I’m just telling you the work productivity suffers a little bit. But.
Tessa Murry (01:47.431)
No distractions.
Tessa Murry (01:52.823)
Yeah. Well.
Tessa Murry (01:58.915)
I feel ya on that. I’ve been bouncing around a few different states and, you know, hanging out with a lot of family, a lot of fam time, a lot of nephews, nieces, and well, nephews, sorry. And, you know, and it’s been fun. It’s been a good summer actually. Taking advantage of the pool situation here today too. So you know what? A little bit of work, a little bit of play, back and forth. So, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (02:18.445)
Hmm
Reuben Saltzman (02:22.604)
Nice. Yeah. How’s the weather in Florida?
Tessa Murry (02:28.423)
This is one answer that’s always gonna be consistent, just like my, depends. Hot. And humid. And you know what, officially it is summer here because it like rains every afternoon now. So, yes, we’re like, yes. It’s officially hurricane season too, so I’m crossing my fingers. Yeah, yeah, it is, it’s sticky though. I mean like the, the, the dew point is consistently like in the mid 70s, mid to upper 70s.
Reuben Saltzman (02:34.264)
Hot and sticky?
Reuben Saltzman (02:40.427)
really? Okay. All right.
Reuben Saltzman (02:46.606)
Yay. Okay. All right. Good stuff.
Reuben Saltzman (02:58.392)
That’s yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, before we get on with our show topics, I want to give a shout out to our sponsors. IEB Inspector Empire Builder just got done with their annual big conference called Unite. I’ll just share a little bit about it. They had over 150 inspection companies under one roof. They had a bunch of powerful keynotes, business transforming workshops.
Tessa Murry (02:58.959)
So, you know, yeah, miserable.
Reuben Saltzman (03:28.366)
Inspectors walked away fired up reconnected refocused a lot of solo inspectors there a lot of team owners and lots of new strategies and The next one isn’t gonna be in a year, but there’s another Event coming up in the summer. That’s gonna be online and we’ll talk more about that next time. So Love everybody at IEB. So got it got to cover that
Tessa Murry (03:50.854)
Okay, cool.
Nice.
Reuben Saltzman (03:56.034)
before we get into our topic. And then also on the heels of our last podcast where we talked about home inspection attendance, who should be there, who shouldn’t, all that fun stuff. I said, if you got any stories right in, I thought I’d get more stories. I just had one person write in and this one, this one comes from Doug. He said he’s pretty sure that our inspection jinxed him because.
Tessa Murry (04:22.499)
Doug I do. Okay. Thank you. Shout out to Doug. Is he Kansas City?
Reuben Saltzman (04:28.169)
I’m almost positive he is. He doesn’t have an end of the email signature, but I would have said that without you saying it. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (04:31.015)
Yeah.
Yep, I think I taught a few years ago at their ASHE chapter and Doug was great. So shout out to Doug. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (04:43.232)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Salt of the earth. Great guy. But Doug said we had the sellers who would not leave. And Mrs. Seller was also the listing agent. They were nice enough, but they always seem to be in the way. They did a great job of providing access to everything. So I do give them bonus points for that. But then Mr. Seller was somewhat of a know it all DIYer. He had renovated the house. So you can guess what they just that they discovered how
Tessa Murry (04:58.097)
Huh.
Reuben Saltzman (05:12.192)
little he actually knew. And the buyer’s agent was there the whole time, which is here it is, which is required by the local real tours association in Kansas City.
Tessa Murry (05:14.535)
Thank you.
Tessa Murry (05:24.816)
Okay, interesting. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (05:27.34)
Yeah. And as we know, that city does not have any codes or contract or licensure requirements as we’ve covered with some previous guests.
Tessa Murry (05:35.847)
my gosh. But the real estate agent has to be there the whole time. That’s so funny.
Reuben Saltzman (05:40.802)
Yeah. Yeah. And he said, but you know what? You know what’s interesting? He says it’s not accurate, by the way. I glossed over that. I’ll have to ask him exactly what that means. All right.
Tessa Murry (05:48.583)
Bye!
Tessa Murry (05:55.843)
Okay, I do remember reading that email and I read that too and I thought, I wonder what he means by that. So maybe not all of Kansas City area. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (06:04.812)
Yeah. Yeah, well, all right. We’ll put a pin in that. That’s another discussion. But he said it was the first time doing an inspection with this guy during the review. He kept on saying little things to the buyer like, well, that’s not important to fix. Or I don’t know why home inspectors always call that out. It’s never a problem. But he did keep Mr. Seller busy. So he gives him a little credit. And the buyer was present the whole time, followed him around like a puppy.
Tessa Murry (06:10.32)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (06:24.903)
Thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (06:34.082)
He was an electrical engineer and we all know how engineers can be. They’ve got a million questions. Yeah, yeah. So good times. Thank you for sharing, Doug. Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (06:40.111)
We love you engineers, but there’s a lot of questions.
Tessa Murry (06:48.387)
Thanks Doug. That sounds like a doozy. Congratulations on surviving that one. That’s one of those inspections where you get done with that one and you’re just ready to go home. You want to be done.
Reuben Saltzman (06:58.274)
Yes, yes, yeah, you just wanna go relax. You don’t even wanna write the report right away. You just wanna go veg out or something. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (07:03.651)
Nope. You just need a break. Yeah, for sure. man, we might have to Doug on our show. Ask him about Kansas City. Yeah. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (07:13.3)
We may have to. Yeah. All right. Send me another email if you hear this Doug.
Tessa Murry (07:18.823)
If anybody’s listening out there. So what’s our topic for today, Ruben? Let’s dive in.
Reuben Saltzman (07:22.376)
Exactly. Yeah. All right. All right. Today, this is going to go along with a blog post that I’m writing on the top five most common home inspection issues in the Twin Cities and as well as what they mean for buyers. And I don’t think this list has to be limited to the Twin Cities. I’m sure you get into any big
Tessa Murry (07:41.253)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (07:50.846)
area where we’ve got some older housing stock and This list could probably apply just about anywhere The the way that I came up with this is something we started doing recently probably I don’t know within the last six months is I’ve got somebody on my team Reviewing all of the report summaries all the things that we list as priority items in our inspection reports
Tessa Murry (07:54.833)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (08:01.148)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (08:19.994)
and they send me an email every day of everything that got called out as a priority from the previous day. Because number one, I like looking at the photos. I want to see photos of bad stuff. And number two, I like just kind of auditing this stuff. It does not take me a lot of time. There’s never a huge list of priority items that we call out. So it’s manageable for me to look over these every day.
Tessa Murry (08:26.651)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (08:31.673)
I see. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (08:43.676)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (08:47.24)
And occasionally I find stuff where it’s like, we didn’t quite phrase it right, or we could have said this better, or let’s all have a learning moment. I, I, I’ve enjoyed reading over all of these items, but something I also started finding in seeing these over and over again is we’re calling out a lot of the same stuff. It’s a lot of repetition on these priority items. So I thought let’s, let’s just make a top five list. So.
Tessa Murry (08:57.169)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (09:16.391)
Cool. Well, that’s helpful to have a little bit of background on that. And can you define what, quote, priority means for structure tech? Do you have a different system for how you rank things and you call things out? And what does priority mean?
Reuben Saltzman (09:17.539)
Reuben Saltzman (09:29.41)
You know, I don’t know how we phrase it in our inspection reports off the top of my head, but my way of describing it would be, this is the most important stuff to know about if you’re buying the house. This is stuff you should know about right away. Sometimes it may affect your buying decision. Other times it’s just really important and we want to put it at the beginning of our report to make sure you really see this.
Tessa Murry (09:50.01)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (09:57.326)
Because as you’ll find out as we’re digging through some of these, some of these are not that big of a deal to fix. I mean, they’re quick and easy. Two of them on my list are quick and easy fixes. It’s not that big of a deal, but they have a high potential for danger or they really freak people out. So that’s why we’re putting them as priorities.
Tessa Murry (09:57.937)
them.
Tessa Murry (10:03.643)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (10:16.441)
Okay. So you’ve probably morphed that list over the years. It’s probably, I’m guessing, grown as you’ve learned what sets home buyers off, what makes them really anxious, what creates callbacks and frustrations and stuff from clients. And so you’ve adapted that list to be able to kind of handle some of these common problems. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (10:40.162)
Yeah, we have. you know, and we’ve taken some off. mean, we used to, when we had really old appliances, like a furnace that’s 20 years old, we used to list that as a priority item, but it got so many people thinking that because it’s in the summary and because we listed it as a priority, they have to replace their furnace now. And we’ve actually stopped putting old appliances in the report summaries as priority items.
Tessa Murry (10:45.095)
Thanks
Tessa Murry (11:00.602)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (11:08.514)
We actually remove those from the priority list. So like you said, the list changes over the years. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:09.252)
Okay.
Really? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And a lot of times, like if it’s a health safety issue, that gets a priority setting rate or something like really big, expensive to egregious. Okay. All right.
Reuben Saltzman (11:22.442)
It certainly could be. Yeah.
Yep. Yep. Exactly. So, number one, and this is probably the most, I don’t know, the most all inclusive one, the most general one that I have on the list. got some really specific stuff, but this one I’m just calling the water management problems. And it’s, it’s something we’ve probably talked about on the podcast at least a dozen times, I’m sure. And yeah, we’re just thinking about managing water at the outside of the house.
Tessa Murry (11:28.25)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (11:43.345)
Clip.
Tessa Murry (11:50.171)
all the time.
Reuben Saltzman (11:55.896)
We’re thinking about rainwater hitting the roof. And then where does it go after that? The ultimate destination for that rainwater needs to be well away from the house. If the water gets funneled into areas and it hits the house, that’s bad water management. the water, if you have gutters and you have downspouts, but you have a single downspout taking a ton of water and dumping it right next to the foundation.
Tessa Murry (12:01.905)
Thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (12:25.196)
that’s bad water management. this, I mean, this affects so much. It causes rot around windows, problems around doors, roof wall intersection problems where you get water going behind the siding, and it leads to basement water intrusion problems as well. And people kind of freak out about all this stuff.
Tessa Murry (12:27.728)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (12:48.294)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (12:52.071)
Yeah, I was gonna say like when I first read this title, know water management problems I thought well, that’s not really does it in my mind I was thinking priority as like a health and safety issue or a big issue, know big problem a scary problem That’s really something but you’re right. These water management problems are some of the biggest scariest things that buyers freak out about because it does it ends up showing up as rot or structural issues or mold
And that is, mean, people freak out about that. And I was, you know, I was actually just thinking I was in a house coach appointment last week in the Twin Cities and this couple had just recently bought their first home and it had a completely finished basement and bless their hearts. They did all of the inspections that they could possibly do when they bought it. They did.
Reuben Saltzman (13:25.89)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (13:47.845)
They actually did a structure tech inspection. did a sewer inspection. Thank goodness they did because there were problems. They did a radon test. They did a mold test. And the mold count came back with aspergillus like penicillium mold like at high levels in their basement. And one of their top priorities was like just their air quality and being healthy in their house. And so when I got there, I was like, OK, let’s we got to check this out. And
Reuben Saltzman (14:06.189)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (14:16.601)
Yes, it’s like a 1970s paneled basement with old carpet in it. And you can see the mold growing on the paneling. Like it’s fuzzy. You hold a flashlight up to it and you can see it. And then I walk around and there’s this other room in their basement that doesn’t have a heat source to it. And it looks like it was done at a different time. And it was interesting because when we’d done the walk around the outside, there was a back porch addition.
that was built on this house like in the 90s. It was a 1960s like store and half and they built this addition off the back in the 90s. It was like sunroom and there was this patio that sloped towards it like this paid patio and I talked to him about that. I’m like, you know, you know, do you have a basement under this room? And I’m like, no, no, there’s no basement. I was like, okay, well, that’s good because this water situation is not good. So we got down to the basement. We were walking around. I’m like, wait, what is this room back here? And
I oriented myself and we did some measurements. Sure enough, there was a room under that addition. And when I got in there, I started looking closer and sure enough on the wall that was right below where the patio sloped towards that addition, there was like pink stuff growing on the wall and there was dirt at the baseboard and some ants and there was just, I knew it was sheetrocked. And I was like, once they pull the sheetrock off, it’s gonna reveal.
Reuben Saltzman (15:40.778)
It’s gonna be gross. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (15:41.185)
whole mess, a whole mess. So you’re right. It’s like it always goes back to the source, water management and fixing that issue first before you try and rip out all the finishes in the basement and refinish it. It’s like that’s, you know, don’t do that. Spend your money on fixing. Yeah, fixing the water management issues first.
Reuben Saltzman (15:48.578)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (16:00.522)
Yes, yes.
Reuben Saltzman (16:06.058)
Yeah, and so many of those big problems that we report on the cause is poor water management. And there’s a lot of houses where we put stuff in our reports. We don’t list them as priority items, but they are the same thing. I mean, it’s like, all right, you got short downspout extensions. OK, there’s no signs of water in the basement. But still, we’re going to put a note in the report. You need to extend these and you need to fix the grading or you could end up with problems. I mean, we talk about water management stuff at
Tessa Murry (16:12.272)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (16:35.914)
just about every inspection. There’s something to talk about where it could be better. So, yeah.
Tessa Murry (16:41.105)
ways. Yeah, and even I get you know, are anybody that’s listening out there that doesn’t have basements for your houses? You know, water management issues, we’re even talking about like humidity control, too. I mean, we’re focusing on outside right now. But moisture is a home’s worst enemy from the outside and from the inside. And so if we’ve got a really hot, humid climate, like, I’m sure you’re looking for your own issues with condensation problems and mold and degradation. So
Yeah, it’s a problem everywhere. It doesn’t matter where you live. Even if you don’t have basements. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (17:13.666)
Yep. Agreed. Agreed. All right. Number two on the list. This is this is an easy one, but it is unprotected overhead electric wires. Now, the wires that come into a house and just about every old house in Minneapolis and St. Paul and the surrounding areas, they’re going to have what’s called an overhead service drop. That’s where the electric power is coming into the house through overhead wires.
Tessa Murry (17:19.729)
What’s next? Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (17:43.086)
Newer homes, usually bury the wires coming in, but all the old houses, they’ve got overhead wires and there’s this clamp that connects the utility company’s overhead lines to the house’s service entrance conductors. And it’s usually like this barrel clamp, this big hunk of aluminum that clamps these wires together. A technical name might be called a ferrule, but you crimp this thing and you connect those wires together and
Tessa Murry (18:08.593)
and
Reuben Saltzman (18:13.198)
I’d say, you know, easily 25 % of the time, maybe I’m exaggerating. Okay, maybe not easily. Approximately, let’s go with that. Approximately 25 % of the time, we’re gonna find one of those connections that’s not insulated. Why is that? And you know what I’m talking about, right, Tess?
Tessa Murry (18:22.535)
you
Tessa Murry (18:34.247)
I do and it’s never like both of them or three of them are missing. It’s always just one
Reuben Saltzman (18:40.076)
Yes, yes, it’s always one. Why?
Tessa Murry (18:43.655)
Why? How does that happen? Yeah, I don’t know. Is it a squirrel? Who knows? Who knows?
Reuben Saltzman (18:50.456)
Who knows, but basically you got three wires coming in on this Triplex usually, and two of them are the hot or the ungrounded conductors, and then the other is the neutral or the grounded conductor. The neutral is always bare. We don’t need anything special there, but on the two hots, they need insulators on those connectors. And if you don’t have an insulator, it means if somebody is getting up on the roof, they’re using an aluminum ladder and they touch it, you could get electrocuted.
If you’re using an aluminum roof rake to pull snow off your roof, you touch it, you could get electrocuted. Or if you’re just up there cleaning your gutters, whatever it is, it’s exposed. It’s a hazard. People could get killed with this. And the good news is it’s a super simple fix. All you need to do is call the utility company, tell them you got this exposed connector. It’s their connection and they will come out and they will fix it for free. So.
Tessa Murry (19:40.913)
We have the source connector.
Reuben Saltzman (19:47.874)
That’s the good news.
Tessa Murry (19:50.417)
How easy is it to actually have that done? That process.
Reuben Saltzman (19:53.196)
I was hoping you were going to ask me that Tessa. Thank you. Thank you because you’ve dealt with this. I’m sure it’s not always easy. I have had I have taken this up the chain with our local power company. I won’t drop any names, but I have I have talked to a supervisor over there because I’ve been so frustrated because they they will always kick it back and they say, well, that’s that’s the job of an electrician and electrician can’t touch it.
Tessa Murry (19:59.345)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (20:22.99)
But they always push it back and then homeowners are stuck in the middle But I have I have absolutely gotten the official word from my utility company that that is their clamp They will fix it my advice to people if you call the utility company and they tell you to hire an electrician Just say thank you very much. your time. Hang up call back. You will get a different operator and Tell them the same thing Yes, yes, that’s all you can do and
Tessa Murry (20:45.575)
Try your luck there. Good to know.
Reuben Saltzman (20:52.32)
And if you really feel like pushing it, you can get the name of the person you spoke with and send me the details of your phone call. And I will follow up with somebody in charge over at the power company because it is so obnoxious that they have people on the end of the line who are given homeowners the wrong information.
Tessa Murry (21:15.981)
Yeah, yeah, very frustrating. Not surprising, but okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (21:18.082)
Yeah. Yeah. So I say it’s easy, relatively easy. It’s not going to cost you anything, but it can be a little bit aggravating to keep making these phone calls. Can be. Yep. Yep.
Tessa Murry (21:25.713)
Well, full time consuming, possibly. Yeah. Okay. All right, that’s good. All right, what’s number three on the list?
Reuben Saltzman (21:33.472)
Okay, number three, we’re going to say masonry chimneys. Tessa, how many houses and okay, just about every old house in Minneapolis and St. Paul is going to have a chimney. It’s used to get the exhaust gases from your furnace, water heater, whatever it was up and out of the house. And then a lot of them will have a separate chimney for a wood burning fireplace or sometimes it’s the same chimney. We got a couple of different flues in the same chimney, but it’s this big masonry structure.
Tessa Murry (21:37.991)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (22:00.241)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (22:02.894)
I want to hear your estimation when you were doing home inspections. How many times would you inspect a masonry chimney and you wouldn’t have anything to say about it? It’s just it’s all good. It’s pristine. No maintenance required. No cracks in the crown. Flashing looks good. Mortars good. How often would you find?
Tessa Murry (22:22.711)
Maybe on the few houses that had a newly rebuilt chimney. So maybe 1%.
Reuben Saltzman (22:28.659)
huh.
Yeah, that’s
Tessa Murry (22:33.147)
mean, most masonry chimneys need some sort of help.
Reuben Saltzman (22:36.386)
Yes, yes, those things are needy. They need a lot of maintenance. A lot of them need repair. People don’t like dealing with it and they’re expensive.
Tessa Murry (22:41.223)
They are. Yep. Yeah. they, I mean, they’re just sitting up there. They’ve been neglected their whole life. You know, nobody wants to get up there and every year check the cap, check the crown, know, tuck point, whatever. So, yeah, they are usually, they’re kind of, they’re, you know what, they’re sneaky expenses, I think, because it’s something that no one wants to think about or no one looks at. And then all of sudden it’s like, boom, you’ve got a
Reuben Saltzman (22:53.73)
Yep. Yep.
Tessa Murry (23:09.319)
chimney that’s crumbling and all of a sudden it’s going to take 10 grand to fix it.
Reuben Saltzman (23:13.59)
And you are not being crazy with your just throwing out 10 grand. I mean, that’s not at all realistic. It might be on the high side for most of them, but not unrealistic. mean, it’s a lot.
Tessa Murry (23:25.559)
You know, it is a lot. You know, this is funny timing actually that we’re talking about this because I literally just had a consultation with a homeowner about their chimneys. So this was a client I was consulting with and they had two masonry chimneys on their house and one of them was for a wood burning fireplace they don’t use.
And the other one was for a gas insert that was put onto this addition in the back. And they had two chimney companies that StructureTech recommends come out and give them quotes. And one company quoted, I think it was eight grand to tear down and rebuild the rear chimney from the roof line up. And the other company, was, I think it was 12 to 13 grand to do that.
Reuben Saltzman (23:49.902)
huh.
Reuben Saltzman (24:12.005)
huh.
Reuben Saltzman (24:17.582)
Woo! Wow.
Tessa Murry (24:18.831)
And both companies agreed. They didn’t even know what the other company was bidding, but they both agreed it needed to be rebuilt from the roof line up, and I agreed too. It was in really rough shape. So I think the more expensive one was, quote, included like a galvanized cap, metal cap, over top of the crown. So a custom-built one, and that was at least a couple grand to do that. So.
That was pretty shocking when I saw that. like, it’s not even that big of a chimney, but here we are, 13,000 later. Boom. And the other chimney, it was quoted just rebuilding the top couple courses and doing a new concrete crown and also a custom cap. And that was like eight grand for that. It’s crazy.
Reuben Saltzman (25:01.162)
So expensive. Well, and I don’t know if we talked about it recently on the podcast, but I recently did a blog post about this. know that. Talking about doing what, you know, you remember Steve Trumbull with Chimney Doctors. He’s the owner over there. And something that they’re doing a lot of now is what he calls a chimney delete, where they remove the chimney down below the roof line.
Tessa Murry (25:15.751)
Yes. Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (25:28.684)
And then they just frame over it and all you have coming up out of the house is the metal vent for your furnace, water heater, flue, whatever it is. And he said in just about every case where you got a chimney that’s in bad condition, it’s more economical to do a chimney delete than to repair the existing chimney. And then you’re done with maintenance. There’s nothing to do.
Tessa Murry (25:38.117)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (25:49.479)
Yeah. Interesting. So, okay. You know, that was not one of the estimates that was included in these bids. you know, that’s a… I was kind of curious to see if that would be possible. I wonder how often they’re bidding that. Is that something that you… Do you think you have to specifically ask for that as a homeowner because the company… Because it costs less and they’re obviously not making as much?
Reuben Saltzman (26:08.14)
Was this?
Reuben Saltzman (26:11.968)
No.
I don’t think so. My guess is if they didn’t include that as one of the options, there was probably a reason that you couldn’t do that. I mean, that’ll work when the chimney is in the middle of the house. But if the chimney is on an exterior wall, I can’t imagine how you do it. Okay.
Tessa Murry (26:24.166)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (26:30.755)
It was. Okay. Yeah, this one was on a back. Yeah, it was on a rear wall. So it was like actually a structural component of the back wall it looks like.
Reuben Saltzman (26:39.2)
Okay, all right, that’s why they didn’t suggest it.
Tessa Murry (26:43.183)
Yeah. So it’s got to be the right kind of chimney, that’s a good option if you don’t want to have to deal with a regular upkeep of a masonry structure.
Reuben Saltzman (26:53.069)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then, you know, as long as we’re talking about this, I got to mention getting a level two inspection. That’s where you take the camera and you look at the inside of it. This is something that we recommend anytime somebody’s got a wood burning fireplace and a masonry chimney. I’d say less than 1 % of those pass the inspection. mean, just about every time we’re doing the camera inspection on a masonry chimney, wood burning fireplace.
Tessa Murry (27:04.176)
now.
Reuben Saltzman (27:21.774)
There’s problems inside the flu. There’s missing mortar, there’s cracks, there’s missing parging on the smoke chamber, all kinds of issues where we end up saying it’s not safe to have a wood burning fire here. So.
Tessa Murry (27:30.289)
small tumor.
Tessa Murry (27:37.507)
Yeah. You know, I’m trying to think, have you ever seen one pass actually? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one pass.
Reuben Saltzman (27:43.854)
I think we probably have one pass about once a year. It’s very unusual. And it’s usually what you described earlier, where it’s a recent rebuild. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody has put something into it.
Tessa Murry (27:49.927)
I’d love to see it. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (28:00.333)
Rebuild. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty rare. Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (28:05.142)
So that was number four was masonry chimney problems. buy in our old house in Minneapolis or St. Paul, your home inspector is probably going to say something about the masonry chimney. And I’m not trying to scare the heck out of people. mean, some of them just need some maintenance. Sometimes it’s a matter of, you know, the crown doesn’t look great. You got some cracks in there. You could get up there and clock them. Maybe there’s a little bit of tuck point in that needs to be done. It’s not all major, but just about every one of these chimneys is going to need something.
Tessa Murry (28:10.169)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (28:13.799)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (28:22.756)
on.
Tessa Murry (28:30.609)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (28:34.213)
You know what was interesting? There was a product that these companies were talking about applying to the crown to seal it basically. And it just looks like a thin layer of mortar, but it’s flexible. I think it lasts maybe another five to 10 years. And it just prevents you from having to go up there and caulk the cracks every year. You just put this on top of the existing crown and it seals it. And I thought that was cool. And then the other thing too.
I was reading about the type of sealant they use on the chimney wall, on the actual bricks, and they sent over a spec sheet in this estimate, and it was very clear about how the product was not… It was vapor permeable, so it was not a vapor barrier. It was vapor permeable, but it repelled rainwater.
Reuben Saltzman (29:21.294)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (29:26.503)
So to me, kind of reminds me of like Tyvek or whether it’s just a barrier, like, you know, behind siding that we use up here, you know, in the Midwest, it’s like, it’s vapor permeable. can allow the wall to, know, vapor can move through it, it can dry. But if you’ve got rain that gets behind the siding, it’s going to hit that, you know, Tyvek and run down and protect the wall sheeting behind it. So same thing for these chimneys is that putting this kind of coating on there will help prevent.
rainwater from soaking in, but if there is moisture in the bricks, it can still dry. Because I’ve seen so many houses too, where they’ve got chimneys where water is getting in and the cap is all crumbled or we’ve got cracks and gaps or they were missing a weather cap or whatever. The bricks get saturated and bricks hold a ton of moisture too. And just depending on the brick, they can really hold a lot of moisture. And then that moisture wants to go somewhere and dry.
Reuben Saltzman (30:04.6)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (30:14.699)
And if that brick is right on the other side of plaster wall or drywall or something, you start seeing this bubbling. Have you ever, have you seen that? Yeah, yeah. So I just, you know, so I think that’s an interesting product. And I don’t know how often you have to apply it. Do you have any idea of how often you need? Okay, yeah, yeah, I’ll have to send you some info on it. It’s interesting, but.
Reuben Saltzman (30:21.558)
Yes. absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Many times.
Reuben Saltzman (30:33.462)
I’m not even familiar with the product, no.
Tessa Murry (30:41.2)
That was something that they would do after they would rebuild the chimney is they would apply this chemical to it and it would treat the bricks. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (30:47.982)
Okay. Interesting. Huh? Well, you know, we might have to have Steve Trumbull on the podcast again, just to talk about all this. We’ll pick his brain about a lot of this. And you know what? Something else you mentioned, you talked about applying a sealant to the top of the chimney. But when I was talking about that, was saying, you know, cock, do you know what the difference between the two is? Cock and sealant? About $5. About $5.
Tessa Murry (30:56.101)
It might be time.
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:05.115)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:11.623)
No? Am I walking into a- What did she say? Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (31:17.836)
Yeah, you’re walking into a dad joke. Sorry. All right. I’m done.
Okay, sorry. All right, moving on.
Tessa Murry (31:24.973)
Robin.
Tessa Murry (31:30.043)
Okay, moving on. Where are we at? I’m flustered. Okay, is this number four? Number five? Number four. Okay. yeah, now gas leaks. That always gets people riled up. Always.
Reuben Saltzman (31:33.358)
Okay. Number four, Gath leaks.
Reuben Saltzman (31:43.74)
my gosh, it gets people riled up. And Tessa, I didn’t realize how often we found gas leaks until I started reviewing all of the priority items. We find gas leaks almost every day. I mean, the person on my team, one of the client care coordinators who was pulling all this data for me, she was actually getting concerned about it. She’s like, Ruben, you need to tell people about this.
Tessa Murry (31:54.791)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:58.789)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (32:03.729)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (32:10.656)
I can’t believe how many gas leaks we find every day. It’s like, this is serious. I’m like, hey, yeah.
Tessa Murry (32:14.407)
Well, okay, so there’s different levels of gas leaks, right? And so what kind of gas leaks are we talking about? We talking about the kind where you can smell it down the block and you have to call the fire department so they can shut everything down and make sure things don’t explode? Or are we talking like gas leaks that no normal person could detect unless they’re actually using like some sort of special tool or equipment?
Reuben Saltzman (32:21.026)
Yeah. Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (32:39.842)
we’re talking about the ladder test. What you talked about first where you should actually get out, like the billboards say, if you smell gas, get out. I’ve been to one of those. I’ve had that happen on one inspection in my entire career where it was like, boy, this is serious. I walk in, I smell gas. I ain’t doing the inspection. I’m getting out. Don’t turn on any light switches. Had that happened once. All the rest of them were, I’m getting really
Tessa Murry (32:42.214)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (32:46.256)
Yeah.
Get out.
Tessa Murry (32:54.907)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Right.
Reuben Saltzman (33:08.43)
close to a union or a leaky valve or something. And I just catch a little whiff of something. And then I take my soap bubbles and put them on there. And sure enough, yeah, it’s bubbling. Okay, we got a gas leak, fix it. But you cannot just put that in your inspection report. Hey, there’s a gas leak, get a plumber. Because if that gets back to the seller that the home inspector found a gas leak and they didn’t tell you about it, like everybody could have died.
Tessa Murry (33:14.767)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:21.638)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:35.961)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (33:38.114)
This is is life and death. How negligent was that home inspector did not call us immediately. You know, just a few tests, just a few. And then, I mean, it used to be that the gas company would not find the gas leaks and they would they started getting this term when they would come out. They’d say it’s the size of a mouse fart. It doesn’t matter. And it’s like you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth.
Tessa Murry (33:44.847)
I’m assuming this has happened a few times, huh?
Reuben Saltzman (34:08.256)
Either you got the billboards that say if you smell it, get out. Or you got technicians saying it doesn’t matter. Like, okay, which one is it? And this is another one of those deals where I ended up making a lot of phone calls and talking to a supervisor at the gas company telling them, look, you guys are throwing us under the bus. You’re making us look stupid. And you got the billboards that say something else. Why are your technicians telling people this?
And he’s like, we will make sure this does not happen again. If it ever does happen again, please let me know the address and who they were and blah, blah. And we will follow up. And I had that conversation over a year ago and I have been dying for this to happen again. And it has not happened again. So maybe it actually did make a difference. I don’t know.
Tessa Murry (34:56.483)
Whoa, Ruben!
Tessa Murry (35:02.289)
Change maker, congratulations. That’s huge. You changed a whole, you impacted a whole industry. For the good, for the better, for the better.
Reuben Saltzman (35:04.93)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (35:08.578)
Well, yeah, I can’t say it was all me. mean, it might just totally be coincidence, too. But you stop it. But the point here is that for most of these natural gas leaks, it’s you don’t call the gas company for it. It’s been happening forever. The gas company, if they’re going to fix it, they’re going to come. Well, they don’t even fix it. They make it safe. They shut the gas off. So.
Tessa Murry (35:15.717)
Yeah, you’re kind of a big deal.
Reuben Saltzman (35:37.166)
My advice is always call a plumber. It’s not a big deal, but good luck convincing anybody of that. Right?
Tessa Murry (35:44.167)
Yeah, so you have developed a process at StructureTech for how you document this and what you say, right, from the report.
Reuben Saltzman (35:52.44)
Yeah, yeah, we put our yeah, we put a comment in our report saying where we found it, we the home inspectors need to tag it with orange tape, they need to write gas leak have an arrow pointing at it. So the next technician can find it quickly. And we need to have photos showing soap bubbles. You can’t use one of those electronic things to diagnose a gas leak. You can use it to help you find it. But to actually prove that you got a gas leak, we need a photo showing bubbles.
Tessa Murry (36:17.317)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (36:21.12)
soap bubbles or whatever leak detection solution or you know what works really well is the what is it the the the bubbles that kids buy you know the the the solution for blowing bubbles
Tessa Murry (36:23.163)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (36:31.341)
just, yeah, that, you use that too?
Reuben Saltzman (36:36.13)
That works great. Whatever you use, get something that bubbles up. And then we put a comment in our report saying, here’s the gas leak we found. Here’s a photo of it, get it fixed. And we also notified, fill in the blank, and then the inspector’s got to fill it in. And it’s either got to be the listing agent or the homeowner. They need to contact one of the two and make sure somebody understands I found a gas leak. It’s not life and death, but…
Tessa Murry (36:38.383)
Nice.
Tessa Murry (37:03.545)
Yep. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (37:05.42)
You probably want to get it fixed.
Tessa Murry (37:08.223)
Wow, so it’s yeah, the inspector is talking directly to the listing agent or the seller every time they find a little gas leak just to make sure it doesn’t blow up. Pun intended. Sorry. Thank you. Long pause there. Okay. Did we cover everything with gas leaks? Okay, what’s the last one then?
Reuben Saltzman (37:14.339)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (37:18.35)
Well done, Tess. Exactly. No, no, no, that’s good. That’s good. Appreciate it.
Reuben Saltzman (37:28.824)
That’s it for Gas Leaks.
All right, last one is sewer problems, which you already touched on.
Tessa Murry (37:37.441)
Aha! Yes, sewer problems. Wow, okay.
Reuben Saltzman (37:38.452)
And, and, know, we just, we just had Noah Gavick with Brothers Underground on for a two-part deal with a little space in between. But if you listen to our podcast, I think you understand how big of a deal it is to have a sewer problem. I mean, these can be expensive. You got to dig up the ground. You got to, or you got to put in an expensive liner and the home inspector isn’t going to find these problems. mean, this has to be a specialized inspection.
Tessa Murry (37:48.838)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (38:08.674)
But today we’re doing those specialized inspections at a full 50 % of our home inspections. And we come up with a lot of issues. And when there is a problem, it gets added to the home inspection report saying, hey, we found this. There’s a problem with it. Refer to your sewer inspection report for all the details. And there’s a lot of sewers with problems.
Tessa Murry (38:15.123)
wow, okay. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (38:33.573)
Wow, yeah, the fact that this, you know, with your recent data collection and reviewing of reports, this made it on your top five list. That’s impressive. I kind of wonder if you have an idea of like what percentage of homes have an issue with the sewer inspection. Do you have a gut feel on that?
Reuben Saltzman (38:53.28)
You know, my gut would be five to 10 % of houses. I mean, I think from the sewer inspections that we do, I’d estimate probably half of them, we have some type of recommendation, like, hey, there’s a little bit of a belly here, or hey, we got the minor root growth, something like that. But as far as like actually need repair, I…
Tessa Murry (38:59.001)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (39:08.464)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:20.422)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (39:22.026)
My gut tells me about 10%.
Tessa Murry (39:23.463)
Okay, that’s of maybe 50 % of the houses that structure tech is inspecting 10 % of those. Okay Yeah, and those as if you listen to this podcast you can understand how expensive those repairs can be I mean we’re talking five ten fifteen twenty grand sometimes to fix a sewer line issue, so Yeah, yucky
Reuben Saltzman (39:29.994)
Exactly.
Reuben Saltzman (39:39.745)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (39:44.524)
Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that, yeah, that rounds out the list. So basically the point of this is that if you’re buying an older house, this stuff comes up, you’re in good company. This is common stuff. It doesn’t mean it’s right. all this stuff should be addressed, but it’s not unusual. And if you’re not cool with this kind of stuff and having to deal with it,
Tessa Murry (40:07.697)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (40:14.008)
Well, you know, maybe you don’t want to be buying a used house. This just comes with the territory.
Tessa Murry (40:19.131)
Then you’ve got a whole different set of problems for new construction that you should blog about Ruben. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that’s just an important takeaway. There is no such thing as a perfect house and you just have to kind of reset your expectations depending on the type of house you’re buying and where you live. And for twin cities, housing stock, all this stuff is super common. So as home inspectors, even though it’s like, yeah, that certainly needs to be fixed and that chimney is crumbling and falling down and yeah, we got a gas leak. It’s like,
Reuben Saltzman (40:24.192)
my gosh, yes. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (40:48.689)
Just another Tuesday.
Reuben Saltzman (40:50.23)
Yeah, yeah, yep, exactly. It’s common stuff.
Tessa Murry (40:52.455)
Yeah Well, this was really helpful Ruben do you think you’ll do a part two of this blog and extend this list?
Reuben Saltzman (41:01.038)
You know, I may. I hadn’t even thought about that, but I think now that you mention it, I’m going to start thinking about what’s the next top five, because that might be a fun topic.
Tessa Murry (41:11.983)
Yeah. I think so. I think that’d be really interesting. Yeah. Cool. Well, hey, this is a short show we finished in under an hour.
Reuben Saltzman (41:16.396)
Yeah. All right. Cool. Well.
High five. Let’s go. Yeah. A long time ago, we talked about moving more towards 20 minute podcasts and it didn’t happen. We felt that’s all right. Well, we’re having fun doing this. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (41:25.989)
Chaos.
Tessa Murry (41:31.373)
We failed. We failed at that. Yeah, we definitely go down rabble holes here. Yeah, hopefully, hopefully our listeners are learning something from our ramblings. So.
Reuben Saltzman (41:42.88)
I hope so. Yeah. All right.
Tessa Murry (41:45.615)
And if not, don’t tell us. Just kidding. We want your feedback. We want your feedback. Ruben, how do they contact us?
Reuben Saltzman (41:52.246)
You can email us, it’s podcast at structuretech.com. Again, that’s podcast at structuretech.com. And Tessa, if they want to get a hold of you for your consulting services, Florida or Minnesota, how do they reach out to you?
Tessa Murry (42:01.959)
Yes. You can check out my website, yourhousecoach.com and all of my contact information is on there. Email, phone number, all of it.
Reuben Saltzman (42:13.632)
Sweet. Excellent. Thank you, Tess. Thanks for coming on and I’ll see you next week. Have a good one. Take care.
Tessa Murry (42:17.361)
Thanks, Ruben.
Sounds good. Thanks, everybody. Take care.