Buying A Home? Don't Panic! with John Laforme

CREIA Standards Of Practice Section 2: Exteriors With Bud Hayes

February 18, 2022 John Laforme / Bud Hayes Episode 17
Buying A Home? Don't Panic! with John Laforme
CREIA Standards Of Practice Section 2: Exteriors With Bud Hayes
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Show Notes Transcript

Episode 17: CREIA Standards Of Practice Section 2: Exteriors

This episode has special guest Bud Hayes from Hayes Inspection Group, Bud is a CREIA certified inspector as well. Bud and I break down each sub section and explain the standards of practice.

As promised here is a youtube video explaining how to identify if the doors are installed backwards.
https://youtu.be/RXNfGy4c8fY

CREIA Standards of Practice

Residential Standards of Practice - Four or Fewer Units

 Part II. Standards of Practice

A home inspection includes the readily accessible systems and components, or a representative number of multiple similar components listed in Sections 1 through 9 subject to the limitations, exceptions, and exclusions in Part III.

SECTION 2 - Exterior
A.    Items to be inspected:
    1.     Surface grade directly adjacent to the buildings
    2.     Doors and windows
    3.     Attached decks, porches, patios, balconies, stairways and their enclosures, handrails and guardrails
    4.     Wall cladding and trim
    5.     Portions of walkways and driveways that are adjacent to the buildings
    6.     Pool or spa drowning prevention features, for the sole purpose of identifying which, if any, are present.
B.     The Inspector is not required to:
    1.     Inspect door or window screens, shutters, awnings, or security bars
    2.     Inspect fences or gates or operate automated door or gate openers or their safety devices
    3.     Use a ladder to inspect systems or components
    4.     Determine if ASTM standards are met or any drowning pre

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John Laforme
CREIA Certified Home Inspector
Home Inspection Authority LLC
https://www.homeinspectionauthority.com/

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John Laforme:

Buying a home. Don't panic. Just listen to the rest of this podcast welcome to Home Inspection authority straight talk podcast with me, John laforme. Are you a homebuyer, a realtor, or maybe a home inspector? If you are, then this podcast is definitely for you. So let's get right into some straight talk about home inspections. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. John here from home inspection. Today, we are back with none other than right, Hayes is back. I had to give him the applause because our studio audience out there

Bud Hayes:

rowing? Yeah.

John Laforme:

So we're getting a lot of a lot a lot of viewers and a lot of listeners out there. So but how are you how you been?

Bud Hayes:

Pretty good. It's been interesting times the last couple years

John Laforme:

and has since the last time we did the section one. It's been a few months. It's been a few months since we've done our

Bud Hayes:

November. We did it. We're trying to get it in December. Now. It's already February.

John Laforme:

Yeah, it is. It's it's like everything's flying right by already. It's been a slow start to the year for me as far as inspections go. It's hasn't been slammed for me. In January. Typically, it's a little busier for me. But this month here it's seems to be picking back up.

Bud Hayes:

Yeah, traditionally, I always take vacation over Christmas and New Year's because that's always slow. Yeah. And so I might as well just get a town and enjoy the family go visit. Last couple of years have been very little commercial inspections for office buildings have it slowed down? Yeah, well, offices are closed retail spaces and offices. Yeah. So there's so many vacancies there that soon as the economy starts picking up. And that's. But I'm going to be doing a third one. I've done a couple recently, I may be doing a third one, I actually am going to be flying up to Portland to inspect a building that they're purchasing up there. So yeah,

John Laforme:

yeah. Do you have a license up there? Do you need one?

Bud Hayes:

Well, I'm not doing it's a commercial building number one. And basically what I'm doing is as a consulting fanatic, go up there and look at it. And you know, we're generally inspectors. So we're, like primary care physicians given a general checkup. And then when we say things like, hey, we need this specialist to follow up. And that's correct. So even though we're out of state, and you want to get a roofer that's licensed in Oregon in that area. Yeah. Recommending a roofer. I think it'd be busier. There's not very much inventory for new houses, a lot of people there's not a lot for sale. Right? So right, you get multiple offers. And

John Laforme:

I don't even try to understand that stuff, man. It's just, I hear different things from different realtors and different people every day. And it's like, I just wait for the phone to ring. You know, it's,

Bud Hayes:

well nowadays, it's quite common to only have a five day contingency period. So that's like, that means they're trying to schedule jobs before they have the accepted offers. So they can Yeah, come on the first day. Yeah. And,

John Laforme:

and or they're scheduling you before they even get the accepted offer. Yeah, they cancel on you. That's happens to

Bud Hayes:

well. Yeah, I have. have had a couple like that.

John Laforme:

Yeah. We all have those. Yeah, we all have those.

Bud Hayes:

But they're usually up front with me. You know, I'll hold the spot for you. Let me know if you get the offer and follow it up. Alright. You know, somebody else wants it at that time. I'll call them first Jesse.

John Laforme:

That's a good way doing it. I tell them the same thing. Look, if you're just inquiring Well, this is my availability. Yeah. If you want me to schedule any clients information, and you need to have opened escrow, so I'm pretty upfront about it. Yeah, it's I don't want to go to the scheduling process. If if Oh, by the way, we didn't get it. Oh, mean you didn't get it? Why'd you call me? Okay. If you know because when it gets busy, it gets busy. You know, so you just want to you want to you want to schedule the people who are serious and get them locked in. Yeah, but

Bud Hayes:

that's shrunk. Yeah, contingency period kind of puts neurosis on the whole. Yeah, it's a little clan.

John Laforme:

A little crazy right now. So which, which chapter are you running right now? Well, Korean chapter

Bud Hayes:

well, I'm part of the LA mid Mid Valley Chapter, which we meet in. Now we're meeting at Alko poco restaurant first to use to go you So we went a couple years ago. And then we went to another restaurant this month, we decided to go back for different reasons. And it was a great turnout had to Nick from LA sewer line there. Right? And

John Laforme:

I couldn't make that one. I was pretty busy.

Bud Hayes:

I learned a lot. I thought, oh, what? What do I need to know? And it was like, No, he got into details of how they fix things, and the new liner material and how they can do different kinds of repairs. I go, that was no, I got

John Laforme:

to be honest with you. I was a little shocked when I saw that email about the speaker for that particular thing. Because I remember when I was there, trying to push new ideas on people, I said, Hey, why don't we get a termite inspector in here? Everyone's like, No, we don't do termite. Why do we want a termite inspection here? For my point, it's good to know, what these other inspectors are looking for. Is nothing wrong with learning another trade or another inspection process? It's gonna help you be a better home inspector. And that's what that's what I was trying to push when I was chapter president and the vice president over there, but I was getting a lot of just pushback on I was like, okay, so surprised to see the sewer guy there. Well, I'm about to see it.

Bud Hayes:

Yes. Yeah. It's all volunteer. Yeah. Group. And so all the people that prison is like the education chair right now as Vicki Thomas. Yep, she's actually doing a good job. So it's great for new inspectors to get involved in the chapter and do things like you needed help with emails as Secretary duties, or Yeah, education is a great position, because then you get to learn and talk to different specialists and get it set up. And I've found when I've done that, in the past, I've learned a lot from just contacting the guys and getting them set up over what you can talk about most speakers, we always try and keep it oriented towards, you know, educating us, but talking to us about whatever component or system that they're dealing with, that we can observe. So if a heating air conditioning guy is going to talk, then he's going to give us a little pointers of like, what to look for, right? Because we don't dismantle it, you know, take the covers off and go inside and necessarily, you can't look at the burners. But that's what he would do often a coils and stuff like, right, it's a great venue, especially for newer inspectors, or even people, you know, we encourage anyone to come in if they want to learn about it. And if they're thinking about wanting to become an inspector, sir, come, come to the meeting. That's one of the duties I do there. I'm certified trainer. So I always have an open door if new inspectors they have to get ride alongs done and certain things. So I'm always willing to try and help.

John Laforme:

Yep. What I want to do, and I was gonna ask you about this is, I'd like to get some new inspectors who may be part of the chapter who are fairly new, and just have a talk with them. Hey, you know, what is it that you're, like, worried about? What do you concerns or what do you What don't you understand? I'd love to have a new guy sitting here with me just to go over a sec and help out, you know, just kind of give them that kind of information to kind of lead him in the right path or her him or her? As Sophia, if you could think of any anybody when we're done. Let me know. And okay, we'll get him in here. Yeah. Get him on the podcast. So you want to get into this Korea thing?

Bud Hayes:

Yeah, so Korea, which is the California real estate inspection Association, which we're talking about, we have standards of practices that we follow. One of the things in our chapter for educational purposes is we're supposed to review these with the whole group once a year. Right. So you know, I don't know how many times I've gone through it. I still go through it. I still go. Oh, yeah, I forgot about this part. Or oh, now I can see why this is more relevant.

John Laforme:

That's why we're recording it. But yeah, so we can just do it one last time and just make them watch the video.

Bud Hayes:

So as I get older, I can watch it go. Oh, yeah, I remember. I knew that.

John Laforme:

That's what I was a young person. Yeah. Alright, cool. So we've already covered section one foundation basement under floor areas in a previous episode. So now we're going to get into section two, which is exteriors? Yes. So on section two exterior items to be inspected, surface grade directly adjacent to the building. I want to stop and just kind of cover this section because this is a huge one. I want to put huge emphasis on this because this lack of drainage around a house House is something to make sure you report on whether it's there or not there. I've heard stories from some lawyer, I know, uh, you know, about inspectors ignoring whether there's drainage or not on a property. Hmm. And that turning into a bigger issue later on down the road. And I personally, within the past two weeks, inspected a house again, that I had previously inspected like two or three weeks earlier. The crawlspace was completely saturated with water. I mean, there was there was a, there was standing water in multiple areas. But it was like the perfect storm. It hit the house had no rain gutters. It had a concrete patio area and the back of the house. And the crawlspace access was basically like a big drain on No, because there was no curve around it. So many rainwater from the roof. hundreds of gallons at a time when it's raining heavy, right? Pouring right into that opening. Not to mention any that rainwater that landed on the the walkway in the patio was pouring right into it as well.

Bud Hayes:

So the whole patio was sloped drawn,

John Laforme:

it was sloped wrong, and it was like them. Basically, the access to the crawlspace was a big drain, and all the water from that side of the house. We're just going right into it. I'm like, You gotta be kidding me. This is It looks like it's been like this for years. I'm like, Man, that's crazy. So then I go around the other side of the house, I do see one. One drain, catch basin out there. And then on. On another area I saw like one small drain. So I'm like, Okay, well, did it just rain here? Why is there so much water under here? This looks like it's been going on for years, not just last week, right? You know, you can tell the difference. When you look okay, this is Oh, this just happened? This is a one off? Or? No, you look under there. You see, you look at the drain pipe, you see dirt at the bottom of the drain pipe because it means the water rose that high. Right? And that that dirt just stuck to the pipe. So I'm like, Man, this is nasty. I said I'm not getting under there. Because it's too wet. And I'm I could see what my flashlight I poked my head in. And I could see electrical conduit all stretched out wires sitting in the dirt. I'm like, I'm not going in there. No. And as soon as they say that, the plumber show up and they jump right in. I'm like hoping calling an ambulance. So I didn't go in there. And I said yeah, I'm not going to knit, I was gonna put my crowbar in there. But there was so much mud, it would get stuck. And then I would have had to go get it. So I just said I'm not going to do that part today. Find out where the SWOT is coming from because I don't think it's a drainage issue only I think there's something else going on here. So they waited 10 days, about 10 days or two weeks, right on two weeks. And they asked me to come back. And the seller said that the they the like the people who do all the cleanups for mold cleanups and stuff like that. They came out and put fans in, I'm like, Oh, great. So if they knew what they were doing, they probably put fans at all the clean outs and everything else. And I show up and I'm like Who put that fan there. The fans are outside the crawlspace though blowing air into the crawlspace. I'm like who the hell did I look at my client? If a man I don't know who's I don't know who's managing this problem. But they don't know what they're doing. He was really I said, Yeah, that's not how that goes. I mean, you got to get the fans in there pushing the air out. You got to pull that moist air out. So I was able to get in. It was a lot drier in most areas, but still wet. It was a little damp. But some areas still had stand they want it. I'm like What the hell's going on here.

Bud Hayes:

So after the heavy rains last month,

John Laforme:

not all there was those heavy rains prior to my first visit there. Okay, but that still wasn't enough to soak all the way into the middle. You get it? It was like in the middle. The whole crawlspace was damp. It was really crazy. And I found out there was an ad during my inspection. There was minimal ventilation. They could have had a whole row of vents along this whole wall there was there was none, right? Like somebody went over to cover them up or something. So this was a perfect storm. So getting back to the what we're talking about here, the surface grade directly adjacent to the buildings. You definitely don't want to ignore the absence of drains and you want to write that up. Sure. You don't want to ignore that because I've heard too many stories about guys just oh, they never I mentioned there was no drains, and there's no rain gutters. And that all leads to problems.

Bud Hayes:

Well situation like yours whenever there's moisture underneath the house like that. That's enough moisture that just allows mold to grow. Yes. And you know, not only

John Laforme:

did find that I did find that as well,

Bud Hayes:

mold, bacteria fungus usually has a strong musty smell to it. Yeah. And then you can and all that, a lot of times it goes up into the house, you're smelling you open up a closet, you're Wow, that smells funny. And that's the air coming up. That we just covered the foundation section but but just on this alone, most foundation problems are moisture related. So if you have any kind of drainage issues, in the house, towards the house, etc. That's going to cause the foundation so

John Laforme:

negative grade, any negative grade, lack of drainage, no rain gutters, that makes a difference.

Bud Hayes:

I just came from a 1920 Something duplex and the inspectors a couple months ago went back to just check and how things were going. The backyard sloped towards the house. And there's a big tree real close to the house. But the biggest problem with that tree is that it was grew up so like all the water from the main drain wouldn't go down around the house now just dams. And there's foundation issues there and and so I came back they remove the tree, but there's this big pile of dirt. So it's still doing the same thing. And I'm like, damn, I go and get a clean out of this out. But there was it's there were foundation issues. The house had settled like a few inches. And this is very slow. Just slowly saddled inside, it was a little bit unevenness of flooring in there. But there was like no major stress cracks or so

John Laforme:

the whole building might have wet instead of just one area. Yeah, though. He's saying yeah, yeah.

Bud Hayes:

And but that it was all moisture related.

John Laforme:

It's always Yeah, always is. I mean, what is it? Was it what does efflorescence come from? Moisture, what is falling come from? It's a worst case scenario, then efflorescence, everything's moisture related, causes cracks causes bad conditions underneath the building. It's just, it's always moisture.

Bud Hayes:

So we want to keep that away. I mean, I've seen old brick apartment buildings where the roof drain comes in, connects to an area drain. So they got all the water controlled around the house and like no issues with the building. Right. And then next week you go in, doesn't have proper drainage. And there's just all kinds of problems. Right, right, right from the foundation.

John Laforme:

So I want to end this, this little section with this last note is, you know, when you're inspecting the perimeter of the house, just if you're noticing, there's no drains in one area, and there's drains and other areas. Keep that in the back of your head when you go under the house, because you may see evidence of moisture with those drains or not. And then you may not see it, whether it's actual drainage. So just kind of gives you something to fall back on. When you're under the house going on. Why is it there and not over there? Why is it over here and it just gives you a little idea of how to troubleshoot it and try to figure out where it's coming from. You want to jump on the next one.

Bud Hayes:

Sure. Second item here is doors and windows. These are items that were supposed to inspect. So you know when we're looking at it from the exterior, we want to make sure there's no rotted wood. They're sealed properly. You know, are they waterproofed? Well, we'll know that when we go on the inside, but we just want to have you know, what do you observe on the exterior around? Windows, we usually like with Windows. You know, there'll be more prone to riding if there's moisture problems. Older metal windows have got their own problems if they're the old crank keychain.

John Laforme:

If they're old, they're old. Yeah. Doesn't matter what they are when they're old. They're old. And it shows if no one's maintaining them.

Bud Hayes:

Yeah, so in a person when they're buying invest in apartment building, they have you know, 60 or 80 year old windows, you kind of go well, this is gonna be a major capital investment coming up here soon, you're gonna have to start replacing the windows so that you better keep that in mind. Right? So I'm not sure what else to say,

John Laforme:

Oh, I got all kinds of stuff. That Oh, yeah. Regarding windows. Regarding windows, definitely look at them from the outside when you're doing your exterior Number one, you want to look at how they're installed. Just the other day, I found two windows with the screws on the outside of the house. The screws were they were screwed in on the sides all the way around on the outside. And I was the first I've seen that. So it happens. So you want to take a good look at window frames. If you you can also spot failed seals between double pane glass or triple pane glass, from the outside any kind of cloudiness. In Windows, I would put emphasis on windows and doors, because they can be expensive to replace, depending on what kind of window or door it is. So you don't want to just walk right by doors and windows, you want to take good look at them. I always hit it with a flashlight like everything else. When I'm outside, I hit it with a flashlight, just look for any damage or on the edges or broken glass or if something out of the ordinary failed seals, you know, sometimes you're going to have to replace the whole window. And that happens. It's just just makes more sense to replace the whole window. And what's the new window and plus installation these days? What at least 1000 bucks. For one?

Bud Hayes:

Yeah, and depends on what type and size. But if you're just doing one, it's Yeah, I mean 20

John Laforme:

You get a little discount. As far as doors is a great topic. Doors, a lot of people like to take doors designed to open in and have them open out. I actually did a video on this on my YouTube channel, because I come across it so often. And everyone seems to be like, Huh, what do you mean, it's backwards. That's pretty simple to look at. If you understand how a door supposed to work, and how it's designed. When a door is installed correctly, if it's an in swing door, then it meant it'd be opens into the house, whether it's a right hand swing or left hand swing. But what I noticed on a lot of these flipped houses, especially even some high end ones, I see it Yeah, the door that's intended to open in was in stuff spun around and opens out. So the first thing you can notice on those is the hinges, the pins, you can knock out the pins from the outside of the house and is removed the door you don't have to unlock it, you could just take the door right off. So that's number one indicator that this door may be installed backwards. And in some cases, you'll see the thresholds backwards, you can look at the threshold. Now the problem with the door being installed backwards is now the top and the side, two sides are now exposed to the weather. If it's incorrectly, there's a rubber seal that protects that the front of the door pushes up against which protects those sides when it's installed. Right. And any door manufacturer is going to declare reject the claim about a door being faulty if it's installed backwards, and if it's not painted on all six sides.

Bud Hayes:

So those are things to get back to that painted on six sides. But yeah, that's something

John Laforme:

you really want to pay attention to because in California we got way better wetter weather out here then of course other areas of the country so people with really tiny homes, they like to have the doors open out I understand that in some some houses, it's like you have to make that door open up. But there's doors that are designed to open out that seal differently that keep the door protected. So what I'm trying to get at is a lot of the times I see as door installed backwards it's because no one took the time to buy the correct door to open outward and that's what happens right

Bud Hayes:

now in Malibu and Topanga Canyon in particular you get high winds and rain driving and so the rain doesn't rain sideways because of the high wind Sure so now we've got it's more important on each door to be sealed properly so so the doors that swing inside we try and close them they've automatically got edges that can be not really designed for rain a hose on them all the time.

John Laforme:

I said that I mentioned earlier like sides are exposed now

Bud Hayes:

so so they have unique you might have a door that leaks where maybe if it was in Beverly Hills and covered with a roof cover in right wouldn't get any water wouldn't leak like right right? But one thing I noticed when I'm inspecting houses that say that one of the outside doors are bowed, you know, latches but it's pop As I

John Laforme:

write it sticks out one or two, it goes kind of goes like this. Yeah.

Bud Hayes:

And so, almost 100% of the time, I'll take, you know, a mirror or my camera and look at the top of the door. And they haven't painted the top or bottom. So you haven't painted six sides, I've only painted four. And so what is a peculiar thing, but if you, if you have it, not sealed on the top and bottom, it's gonna allow moisture to come in and come out, you know, a lot during the day. And it usually has a tendency to cup inward. Because once you're from outside, just away with

John Laforme:

windows with Windows a very problematic I love windows, because you can paint them and that just nicer you know, but you need to really maintain those. As you know, on older like an older, older window, that's wood. You try to open it up a casement window, and it's just sticking out the top and the bottom sides. They're very susceptible to problems if you don't maintain them. All right, you got to seal

Bud Hayes:

so one of the things I do when I'm inspecting a newer house or remodeling is I'll check the tops and bottoms. Yeah. Okay, if it's not sealed well, it's painter didn't finish his job.

John Laforme:

Yeah, I typically don't paint the top of the trim around the doors on the inside too.

Bud Hayes:

Oh, yes. Do

John Laforme:

you ever really look at that they always leave that on done too.

Bud Hayes:

Oh, yeah, it was a door is when I look up there. But that's the same as part of the doors and windows.

John Laforme:

So what I'm going to do, I'm going to put a link to the video I made about doors being installed backwards in the podcast strips description. So you guys can click on it, check out that video. I think again, you learn a lot from it if you're not aware of this problem already. Okay, next we'll get into attached deck oh sorry, attached decks, porches, patios, balconies, stairways and their enclosures, handrails and guardrails. But that's a big one. Why don't you start with attached decks? But

Bud Hayes:

okay, talking about? Well, there's a lot there. So there is there's a lot with decks, deck failures or income cause a lot of injury. And you'll hear about that every once in a while the, you know, 20 people standing out on the deck, and it just fails and gives way safety issues. Yep. Yeah. So, you know, one of the first things I'll look for, go around and look to see, is it anchored properly to the wall? Does it have a ledger board? Does it actually have, you know, large anchor bolts going in and how it's attached? And there's all different kinds of other brackets?

John Laforme:

Flashing flashing? Well, usually,

Bud Hayes:

I'm thinking of wood decks. But yeah,

John Laforme:

that's when the ledge board against the house. That should be should be a drip flashing on top of

Bud Hayes:

that. Yeah. And a lot of times they mounted right onto the stucco wall. Yeah. So now you got that. Soft stucco material. MBG. So theoretically, you're supposed to cut that out and have it positively attached to the framing, you know, rotted wood, I you know, there's one deck I looked at, was walking down to look at something else. And I thought, Oh, this looks pretty good. And then as he come walking up the stairs, then I started. Oh, man, there's like 20 different pieces of rotted wood. I didn't even notice marking down. Yeah, so

John Laforme:

happens a lot, actually.

Bud Hayes:

And yeah, I guess that's enough, I can say on that when

John Laforme:

I can add to that. Attached decks. You know, you want to look for wood to soul contact, a lot of times that posts are sitting on the ground. The bottom step is sitting on dirt. So that's where the soul contacts not going to last. As soon as wood touches dirt, it's doomed. You know, it's eventually just going to rot away. So, I mean, that's a no brainer for most of us here already. But you just want to look for those little things. Now, what about spindle spacing? Spindle spacing on a deck, you know, little kids fallen through

Bud Hayes:

a little bit on the handrail sections, but you just brought a good you just brought a good point though. That is when we have you know, support posts that are into the ground or what if they're just sitting on little concrete pier blocks? He started looking at you go well, this is kind of a hillside properties. It's kind of a red flag that I don't think this is permitted. I don't think the engineer did right. You know, there should be some better supports here there. Yeah. You know, when sticking down into the ground, you can go well, I wouldn't have been allowed by the inspector is

John Laforme:

all kinds of problems. Yes. This this is a lot of deck problems out there. Yeah, a lot. And the limitation on decks two, a lot of times they're, they're completely sealed up on the sides and you can't look under him, make sure you point that out that you have a deck limitation, which means you can't see under the deck, which means you cannot comment on the supports. If you can't see the support, make sure you write that up as limitations. Because you know, you don't want to get a call later going. Well, hey, why didn't you tell me my my deck was right underneath while I couldn't get under there. Why didn't you tell me you couldn't go there. So what happens?

Bud Hayes:

That's true. That's usually anything that's attached to the building, then that would be part of the termite inspectors report to looking for rotted wood or Sure. Evidence of wood just rain.

John Laforme:

Yeah, but you're an inspector, don't you look for termites? That's what I get asked every day. John, you know, was there any termites? And like, I'm not a termite inspector. But you didn't see any termites? I'm not a termite inspector, don't ask me about termites. If I see wood damage, I will let you know. I'm not here to tell you you do or do not have termites. And that gets I get asked by that by Realtors all the time.

Bud Hayes:

Well, there's times when there's rotting wood. Then it's soft and juicy word and it attracts termites. So a lot of times termite reports I'll say drywood termite damage or some? Because it's kind of like both, right? So on one hand, from a structural issue, if we see rotted wood that's compromising the structural integrity, we'd want to write that up. Write that up.

John Laforme:

Yeah, that's what I do. Yeah. But I don't say, if it's a termite issue, or anything else, I just say the woods damaged. You need to get fixed. That's my point.

Bud Hayes:

Recommend, have a termite inspector do a full crack inspection and for further information evaluation. But yeah, if we find a live termite

John Laforme:

I only seen one. Oh, really? In a kitchen. The face of the cabinet. There were in the face of the cabinet. You know how you can pull the face of a cabinet off?

Bud Hayes:

Oh, yeah. And subterranean. Inside there.

John Laforme:

I went to open the two doors for under the sink. Yeah, I pulled one in the whole face came off in my hands. And that was a live termite, like two or three of them right there. I'm like, holy shit. It's like termites. The real tours, right? They when I did it, he was Oh, my God, that's crazy. I've never seen anything like it. But yeah, that really happened. And so I'm glad someone's seen it happen. So they don't I brought I didn't break anything. That thing was literally rotted away already. A whole face of that cabinet was just riddled with termites.

Bud Hayes:

Well, that's where I would get into the joke of, if I had one of my finger, I'd take a picture. Then we go, there's some deterioration here. I see the termite report for more information.

John Laforme:

You know, I'm going to look that up and send you a picture that well, that actually took a shot of it.

Bud Hayes:

That's, that's pretty good. Because that sounds like that's a subterranean type that builds little tunnels and yeah, so they'll come in and from the ground and they'll eat they're a lot more aggressive. And the dry wing Termites will land somewhere lay their eggs and then they come out. Yeah, don't keep staying there and eating the whole house.

John Laforme:

Exactly. Alright, so next one, let's get to porches. Well, a porch would be the same thing. Porch might be made. A concrete might be made of wood. So if it's wood, you know, you're looking for the same issues that we just described, the biggest thing I see with patios is damage, cracks, negative grade, no drains in them, once again, be going back to the drainage around the property. When you see a bunch of cracks and patios, and there's no drains anywhere, well stop guessing because that's why there's a bunch of cracks. Water has nowhere to go. It was underneath the concrete removes soil erosion underneath the concrete and then those areas start to crack. That can't be they just can't support it. So that's basically patios in a nutshell, right there. They're all they all do the same thing. You know, it's all the same thing.

Bud Hayes:

Well, they quite often don't really prepare the soil properly, right? So the sidewalks in the driveway in the patio, and they started settling weird because they didn't compact the soil and prepare it so it's gonna have soft places that will erode and sink into

John Laforme:

and it can also add another thing to that as well. Just as you were talking something else. I thought about something else. I've been noticing on new houses New Construction The House appears to have you know, in most areas it has adequate clearance between the stucco. Yeah, weep screed and the ground or the of the walkway or the patio. But on one side of the house, they'll have the patio right up against the patio concrete right up against the stuff, though. And this is a brand new house. So I don't know how they got away with that. But they did. I see

Bud Hayes:

that quite a bit. Whereas usually what I see is they changed the design of the patio while the house is being constructed. So now the patio is four inches taller. So

John Laforme:

and when they do that, they typically don't have a pitch on it, that's flat, it's right up against the reason for it most of the time is there's a big, big sliding door there, or accordion door and they just wanted, they want to walk smoothly out from the inside out without stepping down or stepping up and they just want to smooth transition. That's nice and everything, it looks nice in a photo when it comes to a heavy storm and rain, that water has nowhere to go. And it's kind of it can build up and get right underneath the door sill if they didn't seal it properly. So it there's no positive to have in that and not to mention how it affects the stucco because the weep screed is now covered in concrete. So that wall cannot get rid of any moisture that's in it. And that's the purpose of the wage greed. So right, you see that even if it's a brand new, shiny house, you still got to write it up. And I hate having to tell people that like Yeah, but everything looks good except for this. And like, they were like, Yeah, we kind of questioned that to several times, you know, so Well,

Bud Hayes:

that's a good point. There was a guy that talked last year at our chapter meeting, maybe probably a year and a half ago. It's back to doors, but those big multi panel sliding glass doors and the track right there. So it comes out from inside to the outside. Those usually are not designed with any weep holes in it. So if any water that gets in there just is gonna stay there. Or if it's on the second floor, it's gonna leak down into the walls. So that's back to the kind of a door detail. But

John Laforme:

yeah, well, that's a good point, we should jump back to that real quick because that made me think of something else. When you do a house with these. I call them accordion doors. They're all bifold doors, whatever you want to call them. Make sure you test them. So in other words, if you show up at the house, and the listing agent got there before everybody else and all the doors are open, so everybody can just enjoy that backyard. Don't avoid, make sure you close that door and make sure it closes easily. With simple pulling on it like this. Gotta remember you know, some some small woman might be trying to close that door and if you think anyone about you is going to start having a hard time closing that door then it's not set right and it may need to be reset. So

Bud Hayes:

if you walk into the house very expensive coveri

John Laforme:

very expensive, very expensive. So you want to make sure that you test those doors, make sure they lock properly. Make sure all the latches work because as you close the bifold door you're going to find a latch you have to turn down the lock that Section A lot of times I see those installed and you can barely move them so that that's a big fix right there. Yeah, that's a big one Don't Don't avoid that. I mean don't ignore that if you see it

Bud Hayes:

Okay, so next thing here is balconies.

John Laforme:

balconies always good topic. Especially when there's a living area under it.

Bud Hayes:

Well, I went out to consult some guys a brand new house they're building and heavy rains five or six weeks ago. Two of them were leaking. And and it's a little complicated because the owner has a general contractor that built the deck and put the waterproofing on it and the owner hired independently a tile man and he then independently hired a handrail glass panels. So it starts leaking. Everyone's going oh, tile guy. Oh, the handrail guys. point fingers. Yeah. So mostly I just went out there and let's do a water test. I felt like more like an arbitrator than like, right? Yeah. Well, let's just look and get out my little infrared camera and found where the leaking pinpointed where it was. And we go, okay, we need to

John Laforme:

did you pull a fingerprint off the nail that went through it? So you can blame the right person?

Bud Hayes:

Well, they'd kind of big inspection hole in the ceiling, so you can stand down

John Laforme:

there. Oh, that's good. That always helps.

Bud Hayes:

We found some other issues too. But it was like, there was a big laminated beam, which is like a laminated beam. It's like, real thick plywood. Let's just like all these plate, and it's dripping down through the middle. Ah, of that. So you go, Well, we know the leaks right above where this beam meets, we just don't know what's going on on top. Right? So go pull up the tiles. Yep, handle it. There's a few crack tiles. So anyway, everyone was on the same wavelength when you know, by the time I was done, but Right. But this one thing I don't like about tile balconies is like, you look at it looks great. But water gets underneath the tile, and it can leak. And so there's no obvious point that you can see so waterproof. Like a magnet sight type coding. You can see it all. So if there's a you can see where the crack is in the hole. Right, right. And so it's easier to pinpoint. And then of course,

John Laforme:

I think those are the best finishes like the fiberglass coatings, and stuff like that, where you can actually see the coating. So like you said, so if it's damaged well, you can see the damage and it needs to be fixed, right? It's not hard but when tile right when tiles there. It's not the tile that's leaking it's what's under this should be waterproof down to there. Right You know,

Bud Hayes:

so and then the waterproof you know, really love this. We're talking about an extra as we keep getting back to the waterproofing, the seal and waterproofing

John Laforme:

the house needs to be watertight, you know,

Bud Hayes:

and sometimes you can't most of the flashings, and the stack was underneath the stucco, so you can't see it outside,

John Laforme:

where our hands are tied. When we're looking at balconies, most of the time, I was speaking look for something obvious. Like why was that flashing sticking out like that? Or you know, what's, it's got to be something really obvious for us to really go, hey, you know what, but then if we go underneath we see stains? Well, that's an indication there's already a problem, right? Yeah.

Bud Hayes:

And of course, where the deck meets the wall. And here's this is their little weep screed, there's a piece of metal flashing, you know, sometimes you just see the stucco and the tech come right up to it, you kind of go through

John Laforme:

a gap between the bottom threshold of the door and the deck there should be something there.

Bud Hayes:

Right. So that means whatever the seal is, is inside where you can't see it. So I usually like to see the metal flashing joint along the edges, you know, it's more reliable.

John Laforme:

And I think one of the most interesting things about balconies is I see this typically on expensive houses that the balcony is flat. There's no pitch. I see this all the time on these fancy homes. Oh, here we go. Again, you know, it's another one. And And typically, a big fancy home has more than one balcony. It's probably two or three and they're all flat. And it's like okay, well where's the water going? Is there a drain on there is no drain it's got to be able to run off so you got to make sure you take a look at that because that can easily be overlooked.

Bud Hayes:

Reminds me of the other story well that went house I was just talking to you about we did the water testing and on one deck they didn't have any drain or catch system the water just boiled over the edge

John Laforme:

and probably damaged stucco well

Bud Hayes:

well down the down the age and then there's an indent came back to feed and there's a sliding glass door and the had left the sliding glass door open. So what I was just pointing in so I take pictures I go we got to change this metal design and redirect this water.

John Laforme:

Yeah, put some gutters around it or something. Yeah, so thanks to control it.

Bud Hayes:

So it's all about Yeah, the dynamics of water.

John Laforme:

Guys, water sucks. Water is the biggest problem with any house it causes all kinds of all kinds of problems. I mean, I can go on for days about water.

Bud Hayes:

Now also on balconies now there's also a new law coming into place with this is mostly with commercial or five units or more balconies considered in elevated element is a legal term. So that means every few years, you need to have that inspected. So. So that's a big thing with condominiums now,

John Laforme:

is he talking about a city inspector?

Bud Hayes:

actually approved inspector contractor, about a contractor who does decks, right, okay, and come up and actually examine them and making sure that there's no rotted wood and safety elements and so forth. So now we're just talking about the residential code here. Right, but

John Laforme:

why standards? Not code?

Bud Hayes:

I am say, residential standards, not a code inspector. We're not code. But quite often on waterproof decking, when you walk around you see cracks and you when you walk on it, and as you find a soft spot, yeah, well, if there's a soft spot here, that means is rotted wood underneath,

John Laforme:

or it wasn't screwed down properly in the first place.

Bud Hayes:

It could definitely need some repair, and yep, and no.

John Laforme:

Everybody out there, take your time, expecting balconies, because you may get on there and this couple chairs out there and a table and it might be hard to move around. Don't get distracted by that really look to make sure there's nothing obvious because that would be an expensive repair and a bad phone call to get later.

Bud Hayes:

And now that is a major problem with condominiums. Because the HOA and the property managers can't really don't access yours to your individual balcony to look at it right. But since it's on the exterior, it's HOA responsibility. And so when when deck is failing, it's quite often that might be 10 Other ones and those can be very expensive to repair. So

John Laforme:

man hours their airways and their enclosures.

Bud Hayes:

Hmm. Well, in the 30s when they have the front steps coming up to the house, they would have many sides they wanted are there Yeah, over Lake Echo Park, you go free for all? Yeah. So there's a lot of codes for specifically, you know, there's not supposed to be any variation in height.

John Laforme:

On tread height and tread i Yeah, that's it. That's a big problem. I see that quite a bit. Actually. Stair riser is not uniform. One's two inches at the bottom, and the rest is seven inches. And then you get to the top and your that one's 10 inches. Yes, you could speak and fall down the stairs. I've done it. I've tripped. Yeah.

Bud Hayes:

It also is a good red flag meaning Hey, this was done by a knucklehead. Yeah, well, city inspector didn't approve this. So it might be unpermitted work. And when they say in their enclosures, that's interesting way to

John Laforme:

Yeah, I'm trying to picture an enclosure on a staircase well

Bud Hayes:

sometimes that'd be a stucco second floor duplex unit or a second floor stairwell and it's going up in assaults you know, so there's a closet underneath

John Laforme:

I typically don't see stairs and close now I've seen them on the outside like you're saying the closet underneath but the rest of it's not included not a close now am I reading this wrong? Is it enclosure like

Bud Hayes:

well, sometimes the duplexes are apartment apartment where they have, you know, the side door going upstairs to the you know, sometimes the units have a front door and then they have a side door and that side door goes down.

John Laforme:

I've yet to inspect something like that, honestly. Oh, yeah.

Bud Hayes:

Well, I think I'm not too concerned with that. But basically, that's what we're supposed to inspect on. So if there's an enclosure there, yeah, should look at it. I'll make

John Laforme:

this note. If you if you are expecting a like a multi unit, and they have an outdoor staircase going up to like a second floor, balcony area where all the other units are accessed. And there is a closet under the stairs, which means those walls, which means most likely those stairs are made out of wood. Those treads or stringers are all made out of wood, and they're just they just have a fiberglass coating over the top to make them waterproof. So I would definitely try to get in that closet and look at that wood as oftentimes you'll find damage there.

Bud Hayes:

And quite often there's no access might sometimes there's not even any ventilation so

John Laforme:

I'm seeing it was a clothes closet. Yeah, yeah. I'm just referring to the one but a closet,

Bud Hayes:

right? And I've run into them or they're kind of enclosed, the first landing comes up and so there's Yeah support system for the stairwells.

John Laforme:

So you just want to call it that limitation that you couldn't look under the stairs. So yeah limitations. You can't look at it unless you open it up.

Bud Hayes:

I can't wait for the next one. Yeah, for handrails and guardrails,

John Laforme:

handrails and guardrails? Alright, I can start this one. Okay. All right, handrails. What I see a lot and it still blows my mind every time I see it is horizontal, four inch spacing on a second storey house. What about the kids, there's no one thinking about the kids climbing up that ladder, I'd be climbing on that if I was a kid, and they can climb right up and fall off the other side. I write that up a lot on brand new, brand new or newer homes. Yeah. And I tell them, you know, if you got kids, you want to put some plexiglass over this. So you can still have the view. But you can safe now the kids can't climb up if they're little toddlers. Yeah, you can climb those all day long. That's nuts. I don't get how the city approves that. Get it?

Bud Hayes:

Well, we can look up the codes. But I know on handrails, just on that alone, I'd like to make a couple. There's old codes, there's been I think the first uniform building code was issued in 1926. Okay, so when you get into drawings of different kinds of you know, handrails, they're always designed to have a thumb grip. And there's very specific like, how much you know, how maximum width, what's the curve, how deep does it have to be indented? For them to grab it? And so quite often, they go that's really contemporary just might have this one by four, or the two by four horizontally, and there's no thumb grabs by sixes. Yeah. And so it's like, Well, theoretically, they have to get in there with a router. I see that all the time. Yeah. And it's a design concept. But that's improper.

John Laforme:

And some staircases are bad. I want to cut you off.

Bud Hayes:

Oh, and then the other thing is handrails. You know, just a normal handrail that mounts with a wall bracket on the wall. He's open ends, and that's what's have any open ends at the top bottom and have to, you know, miter that and have a piece return returned to the wall. So if you if it's just open ended, it's just kind of these sticks that are hanging loose that can catch clothing and so forth. Horses

John Laforme:

and stuff, right and you go flying, because Yank backwards.

Bud Hayes:

So those are the most two common things I see with you know, safety violations for handrails, right improper hand grip and not returning to the wall.

John Laforme:

Yeah, you know, what else I see is staircases with that are made out of wood and drywall. And they're kept a piece of like, one by six or something. There's and there's no rail on the wall itself. So people are looking at this as I'm like, that's not a handrail,

Bud Hayes:

that's just a guardrail.

John Laforme:

That's just a decorative piece on top of the wall. That's, that's part of your staircase. Right? So they're technically there's no handrail there. Right. I write that up all the time, too. And spindle spacing.

Bud Hayes:

You know, that's kind of a Yeah, that's part of handrails and guardrails.

John Laforme:

That's an important that's an important one spindle spacing nowadays is four inch sphere. Yeah, they say, right. Yeah. Should fear okay. I use my knuckles, my hands about four inches. So I always go like this. Oh, I have I have my pre made hand. And I just bring it to work. So I just use that as a gauge. Oh, too much room in there. I just kind of go like that. So if you know what So so how do you report if you're inspecting an old house and it's got a five inch gap instead of a four inch gap or maybe a six inch gap? Well, the homes built to older standards and you just kind of let them know you know, it's got the original hand guard rails. And nowadays this is considered a safety hazard for kids. So recommended upgrade. That's how you report it. They don't have to alarm everybody go oh my god. You know the rails kids are going to get their head stuck or fall through. You don't have to do that. You just need to let them know hey, look, this is an older home hasn't been upgraded. You have older railings recommend you have a railing contractor come out and recommend you know making this more safe.

Bud Hayes:

Yeah, because now guard rails are a few years ago that changed to 42 inches high. So it used to be 36 inches high. And I like to be 42 Because I'm over six feet so 36 is too below my midpoint And there have been instances of guys tripping hitting it. And yeah, taller men. So

John Laforme:

I don't have that problem. I'd whack my head on the railing before I fell over.

Bud Hayes:

But is he good? Is he going to older buildings and it used to be 32 or 30? In some apartments, you go like that looks like it's 28 inches high. And they're way,

John Laforme:

way, way too. Well, I don't forget now, what do you do with these? What I call these old buildings that have been there forever there?

Bud Hayes:

Because historic Yeah,

John Laforme:

start on what you tell him can't change anything, right?

Bud Hayes:

Is that how that works? It might might,

John Laforme:

it might so so in this house, you can die legally, by falling over that, really, that's too low, right on this house next to it that was just built, that's illegal.

Bud Hayes:

Well, now we're now we're talking about codes. So the code in 19 to 25, or 26 is different than a 1990, which is different than 2000, which is now different than now. So, at the time that it was built, it was code. But that doesn't mean it still could be a safety hazard. So now some insurance companies will actually come out and make, you know, the owner of the property convert, you know, raise those higher or do something or make them smaller with sir. Yeah. So just that usually people don't.

John Laforme:

Alright, we get on that.

Bud Hayes:

Yeah. So the next one is for wall cladding and trim. Okay.

John Laforme:

That's a whole, that's a whole subject in itself. First thing I would bring up on that is siding, the ground clearance, which is very common problem with any older home that's just built with a stucco runs into the dirt when a grading just comes out to the stucco. So, you know, if you're a new inspector, that's kind of confusing. Well, how do we write that up, you know, well, it's an older building, the stucco was installed to an older standard. So at the minimum, you want to let customers know make sure your grading is right. Make sure you don't have any negative grade going towards the house. Make sure it slopes away. If you're able to add some drains, you know, add rain gutters, just to keep that from getting any worse than it possibly can. Alrighty, so

Bud Hayes:

quite often an old stucco that doesn't have it goes right down to the ground. It'll wick well as moisture gets on the wall, it migrates to the bottom, and there's no place for it to escape to escape. So it kind of deteriorates along the bottom. Yeah. So as long as it's down on the concrete footing section, then it's not necessarily going to be a problem is going to be cosmetic. But you always, always want to make sure that surface grading is going away from the building. Now there's wall cladding, that's wood siding as down to the third that's a whole different issue and quite negative issue here. And quite often I see that's caused because the landscape has changed the the planters they added more stuff. Over time, things have built up and now it's all the way up to the word and then once wood is in contact with wet soil, it will just start

John Laforme:

because when they went to landscaping school teacher decided not to talk about what happens to wood when it touches dirt. Right that's You got it. You gotta watch people you hire you know, they may be good at what their job is. But if they don't know what the other guy's job is and how those two don't mix well. That's a recipe for disaster. Yeah. So yeah, and sprinkler heads right next to your house. Well, it's not going to help decide either no. So

Bud Hayes:

is anything else we want to talk about the wall cladding and trim?

John Laforme:

Absolutely. wall cladding and trim. What are we doing? We're inspecting wall cladding and trim. wall cladding is another word for siding. So while siding, we'll call it for the layman out there. And, you know, like we discussed, siding to ground clearance is an important thing to report if it's lack of you don't want to overlook that. And does the siding appear to be installed in a professional manner? Is this is the let's say For example, we get wood, wood siding. And you see a row here with the butt joints here, and they see the one above it with the same butt joint, and you see the one above that with the same butt joint. That's wrong. That's not how you say the house was but joints are meant to be staggered. So that's the first indicator that Uncle Bob, but deciding on, right, so if you then take that information stored in your head, and then keep your walking around the building, you're probably going to notice a lot of other inconsistencies with the siding. So that's number one indicator, if you see but joints lined up with each other. That's wrong even with you have T 111 siding. And you see all the seams on the same on the same path going straight. That's, that's wrong, too. Another thing was wood siding, it's really important to have drip edge flashing over windows and doors. A lot of times I see siding, I'm talking brand new houses with no metal drip cap over the windows and the door trim and extend its wood, that water's going to sit on that wood. And if that was not painted properly, or cocked properly, that water can get behind those areas. So that so when you build it when you when deciding how to start from the bottom and work your way up, as you're coming up to the top of that window, that flashing goes on first up against the Tyvek paper. And then your siding comes around, sits on top of it in the next row goes up, all the water continues to flow down. So those are things I see a lot. And I do point that out on a brand new house with no no metal trip cap. And if it's if it's got a big Eve like a really long, even the windows right above it here, I won't call it out because that's protected. Yeah. But if it's a real open faced wall on a first floor, yeah, definitely look for it there and make sure it's there. And a lot of times it's missing. So back to t 111, which is like a plywood. That's a fancy plywood, it's

Bud Hayes:

got the grooves in it.

John Laforme:

Yeah, a lot of people use it on garages and stuff like that. So if you see that type of siding, and there's a big wall there like a two storey wall, and then you see the two pieces butted together like this, and there's no flashing in the middle. That's wrong. That has to have flashing, what is going to get right in there. And the biggest pointer, I'll tell everybody is when you're looking at siding, if you see the if you see the cocking splitting, and you can see the butt joint separating. You got to call it out I got to get that cocked up and sealed especially if it's at fiber, fiber wood, I'm sorry, composite composite wood and stuff like that you really got to make sure that stuff is watertight.

Bud Hayes:

Well there's there was a bunch of brands back in the 80s that turned out not to be waterproof and they grew mushrooms and swelled out Yeah,

John Laforme:

to swallow because like like, like a sponge. Yeah, just absorbs water. So you really have to stay on top of those.

Bud Hayes:

You must inspect really a lot nicer houses than I do. I'm just kidding.

John Laforme:

I don't see these issues. I think I've cited houses before so I understand how it's supposed to

Bud Hayes:

go and the cars wet. I see quite often an older home with wood siding, I always look close, like it always bothers me when you go they never really prep the house before very well before the last time they spray painted. So you can see all these ugly temples in the paint three different layers of paint underneath the top coat and and then and then if you can get into the basement or inside a garage and look at the siding from inside he see all these air gaps and you know light shining through and but an older house, you need to look carefully and like well how well is it painted? Because that kind of indie, it'll show you how well the house has been maintained for the last 80 years. Yeah, you know, if it's well painted, you owe somebody then someone cares

John Laforme:

about their investment. Yeah, home is an investment you got to treat it like that all the time. So if you don't well, it's gonna cost you more money later. But

Bud Hayes:

all of this is we're really talking about anything that you see that looks under gaps. No obvious thin corners the house was Woodside in the trim oftentimes is rotted or missing. Yeah. So there's gaps or so those are kind of the obvious things that you'd report on. Anything else you wanted to

John Laforme:

on siding another thing I will point out with siding if the house does not have rain gutters Remember that water coming off that roof is gonna bounce on the ground and hit that siding, whether it's stucco, wood, whatever it is. And if it's all discolored at the bottom, that's most likely what's causing that. So you want to just recommend, hey, look, you need to paint your siding, but you also need to add gutters otherwise it's going to happen again. So it can really deteriorate stucco. The finishes start peeling off the top coat and all that will start peeling off and and keep keep your eye out for rusted weep screed too. When you see sprinkler heads up against the house, look for rusted weep screed you want to make sure you call that out. Because that happens a lot too. Yeah. That's it for me on that.

Bud Hayes:

Okay, so the next thing five is portions of walkways and driveways that are adjacent to the buildings. So are so again, we also want to look back to make sure that the surface grade is in water drains away from the building. A lot of times when we're looking at that it doesn't rain that frequently in LA. So sometimes I have to look for when there's a patent trade puddle of water that's dried up, you'll see little ponding marks. So sometimes kind of look at those and like where's the water, ponding and so forth. And I think my most common defect that I'll comment on is anytime that sidewalk has shifted and cracked and is raised enough over a quarter inch half inch, then it becomes a trip hazard. Right? So I always like to note those. Yep. And it says on this standard is adjacent to the buildings. I usually make those comments on the front sidewalks too near the street. Absolutely. So that's a little outside of normal standards. But you know, that's

John Laforme:

three, I'm aware of it. Like your clients. Yeah, cuz

Bud Hayes:

a lot of people think, Oh, the city takes care of that. And they go, some cities do. And sometimes they don't, or it's a three year waiting list for them.

John Laforme:

Assume, don't assume just write it out.

Bud Hayes:

There's like you can look at it but but in reality, the way the law is written is the homeowner is responsible for that friend sidewalk. So if somebody trips and falls and goes to the hospital, and their insurance company is paying for their surance bill, insurance company's gonna go home, what was his address? Oh. So they don't say the city, they say sue the homeowner. So. So anyway, trip hazards is important. Now, the, I think I mentioned this earlier, though, is a lot of times that driveways and the sidewalks, they didn't prepare the soil in the same manner that they prepared the foundation of the house, right. So a lot of times you just have loose filter that's there. And then they put the two inch pad of concrete for the sidewalks and a three inch for the driveway or something like that. And then as the soil compacts further or settles or something, then that's where you're going to get shifted inside. Of course, your ficus trees nearby or some tree roots.

John Laforme:

Building is, you know, remember, I say this to my clients a lot because a lot of times clients ask, well is the is the cracked walkway affecting my foundation? Well, no, they're two separate things, you know, the house is built first. And then the grading is done. And then then the walkways are poured later. So they're not connected. So they but they need to be installed right most of the time. They're not they're just they're just made too high. So that when they built the house especially on new construction, they get a nice 60 inch gap between the weep screed and the dirt. And then the concrete guys like well let's just fill this up with dirt some more we'll run that concrete right into the stucco eye how do they not know that that's not a good thing? I mean that's kind of weird. Yeah, I've a general contract is it gotta have some knowledge of this.

Bud Hayes:

Yeah, I've consulted some guys where that was a change order odor and change order from the client request to change the patio right? So now you get G we've already got these other sidewalks in how are we going to do this

John Laforme:

and and that's a scenario I do explain to customers that you know, the owners probably demanded this. They probably said we want this this high. Do it or we'll get someone else to do so. So they just, you know, threw the codes out the window.

Bud Hayes:

Yeah. So this next item six, it talks about pool or spa drowning prevention features, etc. And I think I You'd really leave that just for a whole separate. Yeah, that's

John Laforme:

a whole separate. Alright, that's gonna be a whole separate section to do, because that's a lengthy one. And I will pull out my report for that. And I will go through how I have it all listed, which makes it a lot easier to understand. Because I can just read right through it. But yeah, so anything else you want to add to this? A remarks or

Bud Hayes:

we can read we can read through the things that the what the inspector is not required? Oh,

John Laforme:

absolutely. Yep. All right. So the inspector is not required to inspect door or window screens, shutters, awnings or security bars. However, if you see these things, I wouldn't ignore them. I mean, security bars, I would definitely make a note that the House does have security bars, because you know, they have to they have to operate, we don't test those. You just You just make a new customer aware that they're there. Because they may not know what they are. You know, some people just don't understand these things.

Bud Hayes:

And it's not uncommon that I find that they don't have the quick release, right device design. So you need a fire escape from a bedroom besides the one single door to the hallway. So you can't get through that. And that's

John Laforme:

that's a fire hazard. Yeah. safety hazard. Okay, inspect. Inspector is also not required to inspect fences, gates, or operate automated door or gate openers or their safety devices. So electric driveway gates, you know, show if someone's got the remote, you can always push the button, see if it opens, right. But we're still not going to inspect the motor and the chain and all that we just don't inspect those. So I always write that up that I don't spec those. That's how I do

Bud Hayes:

it. Yeah, I don't try and check the safety reverse feature with a light pressure or something on on these gates. It's kind of hard. Yeah.

John Laforme:

The fancy home inspector, when you're by yourself, you can't do certain tests. If you're by yourself, you can't do certain things, you know. fences and gates. Let's talk about that for a second. So I report on fences and gates when they're falling down. So that's a safety issue. So our number one thing as a home inspector is report safety issues. So if I see a cinderblock wall, and it's leaning like this is a piece of wood holding it up, I make a note of that, because that's gonna fall on somebody. But in general, I don't comment on fences unless they're really damaged it because some a lot of times these California we have all these concrete block fencing separating properties. And they all crack because the footing is just too thin. And watering the lawn and rainwater, it just makes it all just fall apart over time and they just don't hold together. So they're always cracking and falling apart.

Bud Hayes:

Well, I will. I know I've got a little disclaimer in there. It's typically you know, beyond a general inspection to evaluate the fencing or especially big properties where you go, I don't feel like walking

John Laforme:

for miles Yeah, you know,

Bud Hayes:

around this property, I'll just go I don't see it. But on the other hand, just for the courtesy for my buyer, so many people have pets. Yeah, I'll try and look at him just think well, if I have a small dog and you know there are holes in the fences or has this you know, so the gate that doesn't lock or some things like that I'll make mention of it but it's really beyond normal. Yeah. Or standards right

John Laforme:

right right. Okay, we took care of that use. Inspectors also not required to use a ladder to inspect systems or components so we always use ladders so not quite sure why that's still in there but it is we're not going to get into number four which is determine if ASTM standards and that we're going to cover that in the pool section next time. That's going to be its whole own section. My deck is pretty lengthy one and test or operate any drowning prevention once again, that's for pools. So So that's about it for Exteriores section two of the Korea standards had throw that in there. All right. So let's see. That's about it for this.

Bud Hayes:

I know we're probably running over time.

John Laforme:

No such thing as overtime. Some podcast, it's a video it goes long as you want. Okay, but if you got to go home I understand.

Bud Hayes:

Well, there's it probably be a good time to end off because the next section we're going to talk about is roof covering.

John Laforme:

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, we're done for tonight. We just wanted to just want to have a small talk with you now. anything regarding what exterior section any notes for other inspectors you might have or a tips and tricks.

Bud Hayes:

You know, a common thing that we say here is, you know, observe and report. So what you observe, if it looks funny, then you can just say, Hey, this looks funny. But you can put it in a professional way, like, this doesn't look like a normal procedure, we should check, check and verify with the appropriate specialist.

John Laforme:

Yeah, you know, the second part of being a home inspector is learning how to write reports. Yeah, so report writing is something I'm eventually going to start talking about and discussing. Because it's very important. You don't just want to blanket everything. Oh, yeah, the whole house looks like shit, you can't do that. You gotta, you gotta, you know, you got to break it down and call out these separate areas, hey, ah, fax system looks like this, or the electrical looks like this. But you know, what Bud's referring to is report writing how to write it. And that's a whole different podcast, right? There is something I do have to address. And I do want to get into it. Because that alone is its own craft. Some people write really bad reports, some people write really good reports.

Bud Hayes:

And there's different philosophies on that. Yeah. And yeah, we could talk a lot about that,

John Laforme:

well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna construct a way to do that. I just haven't done it yet. I haven't had the time to think about it much. So I'm going to get to that eventually incorporate this into the show.

Bud Hayes:

So we can have some good discussions on that? Well, just a simple thing. How I view report writing, is, of course, you want to describe what you see. And as being generalists. Our job is to recommend further evaluation by the approved professional, right, for more in depth analysis. But we need to keep our report what we say in our report. Easy to be understood by the client,

John Laforme:

layman's terms? Yeah. Explain it in it not, not some technical way. But, you know, not just like, Oh, you gotta fix this. You can't just say that, you know, what's the condition? What's the what's the defect? This condition can cause this to happen. You want to let them know what can happen if they ignore it? In other words,

Bud Hayes:

yeah, but if you get too wordy on it, then they look at this important big paragraph, even if you got in red, and they're not really going to understand it. Right. So that would be number one. But going back to your earlier question, what kind of tips that I would give for other inspectors, as I like we're talking about that one wood deck. Whereas going down the stairs, it looked pretty good. And I got underneath me Oh, and then as they're going up the stairs, I started seeing rotted wood, and I've noticed all these places. So one thing I tried to do is, when I walk around the house, I'll go back and walk around the house the other way. Or if I'm on the roof, looking at it from one place, sometimes I'll walk across the roof and turn around and start looking.

John Laforme:

Same thing in an attic. The same thing in an attic. You go one way in an attic, and then you turn around. Oh shit, I didn't see that in the way.

Bud Hayes:

Yeah. So you changing your viewpoint of position to just be able to observe things differently. So yeah. But I like the general concept of walking around the house both directions. And of course, sometimes the hardest thing is where you find something noticeably wrong. And so all your attention goes to that thing. And then you walk off so that you don't see the other three important items that are right there. Sometimes there can be so many things wrong in a small area that Yeah. I think I think there's one closet in a window and a door under the stairs. And there's water damage on the wall. And I started looking at it there's three different ones coming in underneath the door and by the window and then this outside wall. There's like you get a

John Laforme:

perfect storm. Yeah.

Bud Hayes:

So but to just use simple thing is walk around the other direction or take a different view as you're walking through the I think you can see more items.

John Laforme:

Yeah, yep. Okay, that's all the tips and tricks I got for today. That's about time to call this episode of wrap. So that's the end of Korea standards of practice. Section two exteriors. Thanks everybody for Listening and But thanks again for coming in and taking the time it's easier to do it to people I can't do this on my own

Bud Hayes:

no that's a lot of editing. Yeah and costume changes every time seconds awesome

John Laforme:

changes gotta keep changing my moustache, everything else and my wigs. So like I said, if you know any, any newer inspectors as well as experienced I want to get more people on here. So maybe somebody out there has something they want to talk about. That's great. If anybody mentioned some this let me know and I'll invite them on and we can have a have a discussion about it. But I want to get definitely some new guys or new girls, whoever's whoever's out there and just see where their heads at. I'm curious. I wish when I started years ago, somebody would have sat me down Hey, what are you questions? What are you want to know? Yeah, that was hard man. I had a lot to learn on your own

Bud Hayes:

Yeah, yeah. So that's what that's what's great about the Korea association is there's other guys to network with.

John Laforme:

You got a question on the house you're not sure how to how to describe it. You can call one of us reach out by you know, Facebook or email, whatever and just say hey, have you seen this before? Or how do I write this? It happens all the time. Yeah, a lot of Facebook forums out there groups and stuff like that. That are everyone's always sharing information.

Bud Hayes:

Well, what smartphones newer inspectors I don't know how many times they'll get like pictures sent to me while they're in the basement. What else is will

John Laforme:

I do that with plumbers, electricians? Yeah, yeah. Can you help me out with this? I haven't seen this yet. Yeah. I don't know everything man. I'm just learning every day I go to work. I learned something new.

Bud Hayes:

Every every week, I'll see something go on. I never saw that

John Laforme:

for a minute, so thanks, but thank you. Thanks for listening, everybody. Okay, just a friendly reminder, if you're buying a home, don't panic, Home Inspection authority inspection authority. You can schedule us online by going to home inspection authority inspection, authority four, seven, or you can call us at 800-950-8184. We offer general home inspections, mold inspections and testing sewer camera inspections, indoor air quality testing, swimming pool and spa inspections, and light commercial inspections. You specialize too tools to provide the most thorough inspection possible such as drone or roof inspections that are not accessible, crawl bought for under homes and tight crawl spaces to get to those areas otherwise not accessible. And we use thermal imaging technology as well. So give us a call at 800-950-8184. Like I said you can schedule online at home inspection of forty.com 24/7