Why Your Realtor Won’t Recommend Me

You’ve found your dream home and signed a contract. Now you need a Home Inspection to make sur you aren’t buying a money pit.

You could just accept the Home Inspector your Realtor recommends. But wait, will that home inspector represent your interests or the Realtors?

You like your Realtor and believe he or she is a good person. But the truth is a Realtor is best served by an easy sale without a lot of negotiation. A “soft” home inspection without a lot of defects allows the Realtor to complete a sale without knowing the entirety of the homes problems. They can honestly deny any culpability for those things the “Soft Home Inspection” missed.

The best compliment I’ve ever received came from a Realtor who said they couldn’t use me (after two inspections) because I found too many things wrong. I couldn’t believe my ears. Isn’t that what you (as the buyer) want? To be in a position at settlement to consider all the defects!

Rest assured I work for you alone. That is the independence of Independent Home Inspection. I have no affiliation or obligation to anyone but you. I don’t sell your personal information or email to any third party marketers. You won’t be besieged with gimmicks and offers for your new home. Independent Home Inspection offers consistent results to reliable standards.

Bob Kenney CPI

 

The Truth About Referrals

How can third party referrals that advertise as free afford those TV commercials?  Good question.

The truth is that those referral  companies charge the vendor!  That means that the plumber, carpenter or handyman that you hired from a referral company paid for your referral and will charge you more to cover his costs.

“I got several referrals at the same time and only chose one,” you say.  Well the dirty little secret is that the referral company charged each of those vendors,  whether they were chosen or not.  That means that the vendor you chose not only had to increase his rates for your referral but also for each referral he wasn’t chosen for.

Why would you want a nationally advertised company to refer a tradesman  that will need to be local to provide you service and reasonable rates?   It is just a numbers game to them.  They have no more interest in your needs than the man in the moon.  The tradesmen they refer to you will only be the ones who agreed to pay for your referral.

So now you have several  names.  Each of whom has paid for your number.  Each of whom could be reached just as easily on the internet without the middle man referral company.  Other than generate income for the referral company, what have you accomplished?  You still have to choose.

You say the referral company has ‘vetted’ each of these companies.   Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?  The truth is there is no incentive to the referral company to limit vendor participation by excluding anyone, regardless of their performance or reputation.  The more vendors that pay them the more they profit.

Several of these referral companies are engaged in class action suits with either vendors or consumers for fairly obvious performance and ethics violations.

I was taught there are no free lunches.  All costs will trickle down to the consumer.

Smoke Alarms Re-visited

There are four distinct requirements for Baltimore County Rental Inspection smoke detectors. This continues to be a topic of confusion for owners who are trying to comply with the law. Maryland code for residential properties has never been retro-active. This means that new code only applies to new construction. However, because you are re-purposing the property for rent the licensing laws in Baltimore County are in addition to and supersede the current code.

Section A of the inspection sheet details the specific requirements for smoke alarms. The first paragraph applies to all properties, while the subsequent categories define the locations for various property configurations.

The first requirement is that ALL smoke alarms in a rental property must be hardwired. That is, they are powered by the house wiring with a battery backup in case of a power failure. There are no exceptions!

The second requirement is interconnection of multiple smoke alarms. This is not to be confused with hardwiring. Interconnection of smoke alarms allows them to all respond simultaneously to smoke at a single location. Smoke that originates in the basement will set off all the alarms to alert you no matter where in the home you are. This has the advantage of allowing you more time to exit the property.

Interconnection of smoke alarms can be accomplished in two different ways. One is to simply connect a physical wire between each of the smoke alarms. This may not be practical in situations where the wire must traverse multiple floors such as a town house.

A newer method of interconnection is by radio signal. A coded signal is transmitted between smoke alarm stations by radio waves when a smoke alert is needed. Wiring is greatly simplified by this method and transmitted signals do not interfere with other devices in the home. Note that this method only accomplishes interconnection and does not replace the need to hardwire the smoke alarms for power.

The third requirement for smoke alarms in Baltimore County Rental properties is that they be less than ten years old. Testing has been done by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) that shows that smoke alarm sensitivity is significantly reduced after ten years. Diminished sensitivity of smoke alarms will reduce the time you have to exit the premises and increase the risk of harmful smoke exposure or death. Smoke alarms ten years or older must be replaced.

Hardwired smoke alarms, as required by Baltimore County Rental licensing, can never be replaced by battery only alarms.

The final requirement for rental properties in Baltimore County is that all installed smoke alarms be from the same manufacturer to insure proper interconnectivity.

I hope this clarifies the Baltimore County Smoke alarm requirements. I have run into a few situations where the installer has complied with the new smoke alarm law, but not with the Baltimore County Rental regulations. Feel free to call Independent Home Inspection if you have any questions.

Indoor Air Quality

Indoor air quality has become increasingly important to homeowners. Year round temperature control inside homes results in windows that are seldom opened and air that is continuously recycled. Skyrocketing energy costs have accelerated the sealing off of homes from the outdoor environment.

Many homeowners believe that their air handler filters can play a larger role in the quality of air inside the home. Towards this end they spend money on expensive furnace filters in the hope that that will significantly improve the air quality in their home.

To affect air quality in your home you will need an air handler that is capable of 10 to 15 air changes per hour. Typical residential air handlers average only 4 to 7.5 air changes per hour if run continuously and may only operate twenty minutes or less out of every hour on auto.

After reading above you now know that your system is not optimized to affect indoor air quality. You may have made maters worse by installing a “high efficiency” filter. A filter that has high efficiency (catches more and smaller dirt) has a low air flow. It is simply more restrictive. Low air flow will result in inadequate cooling or heating.

In order to efficiently cool or heat your home your system needs optimum air flow. this is achieved with a less restrictive filter. The purpose of the filter in your system is to protect the air handler components only, not to affect air quality.

Save your money and buy the least restrictive filter for your system. In the long run you will save on energy costs as well simply because your system will run less to do more work!

An Independent Home Inspection can save you money over the life of your home.