This week on the Thoughts from the Crawlspace podcast, Jamie Miller, CEO of Gold Key Home Inspections, Inc., shares practical tips for homeowners, real estate agents, and investors on how to get ready for an upcoming inspection. Jamie emphasizes the importance of addressing safety and maintenance items, such as checking outlets, ensuring GFCI protection, and repairing leaks. He also discusses routine interior and exterior maintenance tasks, like re-caulking windows and cleaning gutters, that can significantly impact your home's impression on potential buyers. 

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Episode Highlights

• Performing simple safety checks like ensuring outlets have covers can significantly improve inspection outcomes.
• GFCI outlets are critical near water sources and should be checked for proper function.
• Maintaining your home with routine repairs like fixing leaks can prevent larger issues later.
• Ensure proper access to key areas like attics and electrical panels for a thorough inspection.
• On inspection day, make sure utilities are on and pets are secured for a smooth process.
• Clear paths for inspectors and allow sufficient time for a thorough inspection to be conducted.

Timestamps

(00:01) Introduction to Homeownership Solutions

(01:18) Preparing for Home Inspections: Safety Maintenance Tips

(08:01) Home Inspection Tips: Safety and Maintenance

(16:52) Exterior Maintenance Tips for Homeowners

(23:16) Preparing for the Home Inspection

(29:20)Preparing for Home Inspections: The Importance of Pets

Welcome to Thoughts from the Crawl Space, a podcast where our goal as home inspection experts is to support and serve our community.

Whether you're a homeowner, home buyer, real estate agent or investor, we believe everyone deserves solutions to their homeownership challenges and inspiration along the way.

Your path to success starts here.

Hello again, everybody.

Welcome to another episode.

Today we're going to be talking about what to do if your house is actually the one that's being inspected.

Many times we will, you know, inspect a house for a buyer and then they say, uh, oh, I'm selling my house and you guys are coming to do it.

So, and they're worried about if we get there, what we're going to call out and things like that.

So today's episode is just going to be kind of a quick trip about some things you can do in your home to prepare for the home inspection.

This could be also valuable for our real estate agents that is listening to this and, you know, wants to have that house perfectly prepared for the home inspection.

So we're going to give you some tips.

These also can be used, just some of these in home maintenance.

So if you're not selling your house, it will be a way to just help you maintain it.

So let's jump right in.

I'm going to break these up into some categories.

First of all, we're going to talk a little bit about safety maintenance, so some safety items that you can look at before a home inspector gets there.

Then we're going to talk about just some routine interior maintenance, some routine exterior maintenance.

And then also the day of the inspection, what are some things to know, what are some things to prepare for and so forth.

So first of all, these safety maintenance things, and the reason I'm telling you these things is many times there aren't.

There isn't any gigantic earth shattering defect that we find.

All right, but there might be several little ones.

And when you have several little ones, sometimes that can add up in a buyer's mind and they wonder, was this home taken care of?

Well, do I need to know something that they're hiding and so forth.

So these are just little things that if you do these, it's not going to go on the inspection report and it's going to just make for a better overall inspection.

All right?

And so number one, check outlets for proper cover.

So this applies to outlets and switches.

If we see an outlet anywhere and it doesn't have a cover on it, not a huge deal.

But it is a safety feature or issue.

So we're Going to call it out.

Go buy a whole box of covers.

You can get them pretty much any hardware store or big box store, relatively low priced, you know, 50 cents a cover maybe.

And get those put on.

Make sure you get the one that fits properly and that you get those on before the inspector shows up.

That's a big one.

We see those on almost every inspection.

So if you can eliminate that problem, you're off to a great start.

Number two, GFCI protection.

GFCI stands for ground fault circuit interrupter.

Interrupter to be more precise.

And, and this is that type of receptacle that has the on test and reset button.

All right, Those are required within six feet of water.

Modern codes require them seemingly everywhere.

Outside in the garage, near sinks, near laundry.

There's debate on whether you should have one near a sump pump or not.

Because if there's water and the sump pumps on a gfci, you know, it can trip off easier.

And then your sump pump doesn't work, then your basement floods.

So at the very least we recommend having those in bathrooms and kitchens.

Modern codes for new houses require outlets on every wall of a kitchen.

For prior to newer codes.

Just within 6ft of water is a good rule to follow.

Typically.

Those are probably the two most common areas we see where you don't have them.

And you should doesn't have to be a receptacle.

You can get an electrician to put a GFCI breaker in the main panel that covers the entire circuit and that's just as effective.

It just.

The downside is you have to go to the breaker panel to reset it if it does trip.

But if you don't have those, especially some loans, for example, we go into a house, we're not code checkers.

All right, but some loans, FHA, VA, they are USDA, they will require those to be brought up to current standards even if the home would not have been required to have them when it was built.

So it's a good idea, just replace them.

It's a good safety improvement regardless.

And it's a good idea to have them in before an inspection so those don't get called out on an inspection if you do have them.

It's not a terrible idea to just check them, make sure they're actually working.

Many times we'll hit the test button and it will not reset or we'll hit a test button and one of the buttons comes flying out at you.

We've had that happen before.

Especially if they're outside the weather, the sun, UV, everything wears on them.

If they're like 12, 14 years old or older, there's a good chance your outside receptacles, your GFCI receptacles need to be replaced anyhow.

So it's a good time to do it before the inspection.

Back to wiring or continuing with wiring is any exposed wiring needs to be protected.

Now, some jurisdictions, Chicago, for example, all wiring has to be in conduit.

That's not like.

It's not like that around here.

But anytime you have exposed fittings or splices, that's no good.

So that's always going to be called out.

If you don't feel comfortable in your attic, hire somebody to look in your attic for them.

That's probably where we see them the most often.

Maybe in a crawl space place.

People don't go very often.

All right.

But if you have splices or electrical connections that are not properly protected in a box, those need to be fixed before a home inspection.

That's always going to be called out.

And you know, you want to contain the elements.

If there's arcing or sparking, contain that in an improved junction box for your own safety, but especially for an inspection that's coming through exterior hose bibs.

So there's a couple of kind of hose bibs.

The older style, which is just on off, and then the newer kind, which are anti siphon valves.

All right.

And these usually will have a little round gizmo, we'll call it a gizmo on top.

All right.

And what that is, it's an anti siphon feature.

So if you have hoses hooked up to your faucets and you're done with the water, it doesn't siphon back into the potable drinking water.

Or some people say potable, Potable, potable.

You don't want that outside water that was in the hose mixing with drinking water because it can contaminate it.

So the anti siphon valve helps to prevent that.

Now, as an aside, a different note, I think we've already mentioned this on a previous podcast, but you want to disconnect the hoses from your faucets, even the anti siphon ones in freezing weather.

So make sure you do that as well.

If we see that connected on a home inspection in the colder months, we're going to call that out.

And that can be, that can lead to breaks in the line.

And we've just seen all kinds of issues with that.

So another safety tip is secure all the handles on pools and porches and interior stairways.

So railings, right, Railings should be at least 36 inches high.

The spindles on the railings should be no more than about 4 inches wide.

And upgrading those, it's going to get called out if it doesn't meet current standards as just a safety issue.

It doesn't matter what the local jurisdiction requires.

That's something that we feel as inspectors is important.

Some of the older houses will have like a two foot railing upstairs along the stairway.

And that kind of a railing is almost more of a trip hazard than a safety feature.

Right.

And so upgrading that kind of thing is going to go a long way on your home inspection.

Some other things inside.

Again, these are issues that likely will be called out on inspections if they're not done properly.

All right.

Repair leaky faucets and fixtures.

If your toilet doesn't shut off, if the handle for the flush assembly isn't quite right, if it just runs and runs and runs, that's potentially wasting a lot of money and obviously water, but money, especially if you're on city water, even if you have a well, it's going to cause your well to run more often.

Any kind of leak will do the same.

You'd be amazed at a leaky faucet how much water it can waste over the course of a week or a month or even longer.

So check out your faucets.

If they don't shut off quite right, get them repaired, replace them, have those ready for an inspection.

Re caulk around the bathroom and sinks.

You'll go into showers.

A lot of times there's a lot of black moldy type growth going on around the caulk on a tub.

It hasn't been cleaned right or it's flaked apart, it's dried out, it's pulled away.

And so re caulk, simple little task.

Almost any homeowner can do this.

Remove the old, put in new, it's going to look new, it's going to look cared for.

And that goes a long way in the mind of a buyer.

Check receptacles.

All right.

We talked before in a previous episode about some of the major electrical defects that we commonly see go through.

You can buy a tester from Lowe's or Home Depot or wherever for five or ten dollars and check receptacles, make sure they're wired correctly.

We're going to check them all.

So if you already checked them and you find they're not right and you hire an electrician to get those done properly, that's going to be one less thing on the inspection report.

That and it potentially is a problem.

Broken windows.

Broken windows stand out.

All right, we're always going to call out broken glass.

It should be fixed.

If you have a broken window that you've known about, you just need to get it fixed, get it fixed before the inspector shows up and you can and save yourself a.

Again, another headache on the inspection report.

And another thing to do, and this is only if you have a chimney, is get it cleaned.

Almost every time there's a wood burning fireplace, we're going to recommend having the chimney clean.

Number one, we can't see the flu real well in most cases.

Number two, a chimney sweep is able to take cameras down and look at the chimney for further defects that maybe can't be seen on a regular inspection.

And number three, we don't want a buildup of anything that could potentially catch fire and cause a chimney fire.

So get it done ahead of time.

If you have a receipt sitting there, a work order that shows that this was professionally cleaned, that goes a long way.

It really gives confidence to the buyer, it gives a degree of confidence to the home inspector.

And it's just a good thing to do going into selling your home.

And on that same vein, your furnace and AC have it serviced.

If we don't, if we don't see any evidence of service on a furnace within the last year, we're going to recommend it.

Manufacturers recommend they be serviced every year.

So if we see a furnace and we see the Last service was 2 1/2 years ago, even if you have a clean filter, even if it looks pretty good, we have to assume nobody professional has been there in a while.

And so we're going to recommend that you get that serviced.

Doesn't mean there's any problems, it just means there might be.

And we're going to stand with manufacturer recommendations to get the furnace cleaned and serviced.

They may find a big problem, they may not, but you can really help things.

You know, if you have a work order right there and it shows what they did and it's a quality company, we're not going to put it on the report.

We're going to see, oh, it's been serviced.

These people are awesome.

All right, so make sure you get that done fresh batteries in smoke detectors.

That's another important tip.

Nobody likes to go to a home inspection and have this smoke detectors chirping at them the whole time.

It gets pretty annoying.

When your inspector gets annoyed, there's a chance that he's going to be a little angry around the report.

Right?

Just, just kidding, of course.

But it's a good time whether you live there or not.

Have those.

Obviously if you live there, you're probably not going to put up with the chirping.

But if it's a vacant home, you've moved away.

Either do it yourself or hire somebody to go replace the batteries in the smoke detector so they're not chirping.

Dryer vent cover.

This is something that is kind of overlooked a lot of times.

But the dryer vent cover, the one that's outside has louvers on it.

Sometimes it's a screen.

Just make sure it's intact.

Especially in colder months.

That's an.

That is a huge temptation for critters to crawl into the dryer venture.

Could be mice.

You know, as we get towards spring, birds build nests in them and they want that natural free air.

Right.

Critters like comfort just like humans do.

So look for that dryer vent.

Make sure it's not obscured by anything.

You don't want it obscured by the ground.

Sometimes they come out below ground in a window.

Well, it's never a great idea, but just make sure it's not going to get covered up with snow or debris or anything like that.

Another big tip interior wise is light bulbs.

We're going to flip switches.

We're going to try to check for lights functionality, check three way switches and so forth.

If there's, if it's a light bulb missing or not missing, but just burned out, it can get really frustrating to the inspector to determine, okay, is this a defective circuit or do we actually have a problem or yeah, do we have a problem with the circuit or is this a bad bulb?

And so it's hard to tell.

Makes the inspection take longer.

And again, a potential item to go on the report that doesn't need to be there.

If you just do a little bit of maintenance.

Another thing, check your garbage disposal and all your kitchen appliances.

Really.

All right, if you got a weird noise in your garbage disposal and you haven't used it because of that either, get it replaced.

Help have somebody hired to come find out why it's got a weird noise.

Does it just have something stuck in it?

You know, obviously you got to Be careful with this because there's blades down there, and you don't want to risk injury.

But if any of your appliance, if you know there's burners on your stove that don't work right, get it fixed or replace whatever is needed.

And if you know your oven doesn't heat up, disclose that, get it fixed, whatever you need to do to make the transaction go more smoothly.

All right.

Filters.

Any kind of furnace filter just goes back to maintenance a little bit we talked about earlier.

But even if the furnace doesn't show signs of service, if we see a clean filter, we at least know somebody was taking the time to do something.

So that means something.

At least we don't have replace filter on the home inspection report.

All right.

All right.

Another thing that you maybe don't think about is water temperature on the water heater.

We recommend it be around 125 degrees for the absolute hottest that's coming out of the water heater.

Many times we see houses where the water temperature is 140, 150, 60, even up to 180.

180 is pretty much top, but that's way too hot, especially if you have small kids in the home.

So that's a safety feature that you can easily solve.

Turn your thermostat down on the water heater.

You know, if you like it super hot, that's your prerogative.

But before the home inspection, turn it down so it doesn't, because that's going to get flagged as a safety issue if it's too hot on a home inspection.

All right, so let's talk quickly about a few exterior maintenance items.

We've talked about safety.

We've talked about interior.

Here's a few exterior tips.

Go look around the outside and repair any damaged masonry, vinyl siding, wood siding, especially wood siding.

Wood siding takes a long time to inspect because you have to probe a lot of it.

It can look good, but it's rotted.

Maybe you have some flashing that's improper in some areas that's causing leakage.

It's causing damage to the wood.

Just go around and check outside.

I get it.

In this market, there's more of a demand, and it's pretty much as is, but it's still going on the inspection report.

And we don't want to dissuade a buyer by loading up the report with a lot of maintenance items.

But that's essentially what you're doing as a homeowner if you're allowing that stuff to be not fixed before the home inspection.

Seal cracks in a driveway.

Cracks are very common in concrete.

All right?

They just are all concrete cracks at some point.

But seal the cracks, especially if they're of any notable size, quarter inch more offset, either have the concrete leveled or at least have them professionally sealed so you're not getting water down in there.

And the water can freeze in the winter, expand and crack it further.

That's why we typically are going to call it out.

You know, it's just a maintenance repair.

It's not a major defect, but you want to seal any cracks that you might see.

Now, if you see them in a wall in the basement, that's a little more significant and might require a little bit different kind of ceiling.

So any even minor defects in exterior walls, we're just looking for them.

It's what the buyer is paying us for.

They're paying us for finding things that would, you know, be health and safety issues, structural issues, water penetration, insect damage systems, or components that aren't working like they should.

So our eyes are trained to just find things that aren't like they should be.

And so these tips I'm giving you are just a way to help alleviate some of that as we go into a home inspection.

All right, a big one is re caulking around exterior windows and doors.

Caulk around windows helps keep water out.

It helps limit air infiltration.

So get those re caulked.

Another big one outside is roof.

Look for missing shingles.

How often do you really look on your roof?

Go up there if you feel comfortable.

If not, hire a roofer, replace some shingles, make sure all the nails are set.

I was just on my roof last week, and I had to set and seal six or seven different nails.

And I hadn't been up there in a few years.

And so things happen.

Freezing, thawing, all those things work.

Nails loose, they pop through shingles, they create leak areas.

That's going to get called out on a home inspection report.

So get up there and get those fixed before we roll into town.

All right?

Clean debris from gutters and downspouts.

We want water to be diverted away from the foundation.

One of the most common things we see outside on a home inspection that goes on the report is poor grading or poor water management.

All right?

If your home is built in a certain way, there's only certain things you can do about it.

That's one thing.

But you can always have clean gutters.

You can always extend the downspouts.

You can always improve grading right next to the foundation.

So water is funneled around the house instead of toward it.

So really for those grading and drainage issues that might pop up, also along that vein is trees and shrubs.

We always recommend vegetation be at least 18 inches away from the siding and away from the air conditioner to allow for proper airflow, to allow for proper drying.

Especially if you have shrubs or tall bushes planted on the north side of the house, which hardly gets any sunshine, you want those away or it's going to foster green now, moss growth, mold growth, that kind of thing.

So all those little things add up in a home inspection.

And while shade is great in the summer, if it's too close to the house, if trees are overhanging, we're going to recommend they be trimmed.

If you have dead branches above the roof, we're going to recommend having an arborist come out and do what's needed.

Removing trees is expensive, so look into this ahead of time.

Get done.

What needs done needs to be done on your own dime, while there's not the emotion of the real estate traction going on.

So get it done before that.

Also, one little thing you may not think about is, especially if you have brick, wherever you have doors and windows, there's going to be a, it's called a lintel.

It's a steel L shaped device that goes along the top of the window or door and this is supporting the brick above.

Well, those can rust.

And when steel rusts, it expands.

And when it expands, it's going to.

The weakest link is going to be affected and that's the mortar joints.

And so you're going to see cracks in the brick around the corners of the window or door.

And so in extreme cases, the lintel can rust out and it can really, they just have to be replaced and that's pretty expensive.

So a nice maintenance tip.

Thinking something we're always going to call out on a report or recommend is having the lintel sanded and painted if we see rust.

All right, so sand them.

Sometimes you can do it by hand.

Sometimes you need like a wire brush on a, on a drill or something like that to get the rust off and then paint it.

But it's something that's not an expensive maintenance tip, but definitely goes a long way on an inspection.

All right.

And then finally outside, check all your siding for gaps, cracks, holes, anything like that.

Look for signs critters maybe have been tunneling in or chewing through your sighting.

Squirrels are very adept at chewing holes in your sighting.

Wood, vinyl, doesn't seem to matter.

They're going to find a way in.

They feel heat Coming from an attic or something, they want that area.

So look for anything like that.

So I've given you some safety tips, some routine interior tips, some routine exterior tips.

So now's the day of the inspection.

All right, what are some tips?

And we really appreciate these things.

When they're done, either the listing agent lets the buyer know or the buyer just does these and is very welcoming to the inspector.

Inspectors are not there to be, you know, basically in this season, the Grinch that stole Christmas or the Grinch that stole the transaction.

We really aren't.

We're there to be honest, to be fair to both sides of the party, to be, you know, just upfront about the condition of the home.

So if you show that you have taken an interest in this as a seller, you've shown you care about this, you've shown that you want this to go as well as possible.

We noticed that.

And that goes a long way.

All right, so here's a few things to know about the day of inspection.

A typical inspection, just a big old round figure, is probably three hours.

You got a bigger house, going to take longer.

You got an older house, it's going to take longer.

You got a big older house, it's going to take longer.

Right.

If a house isn't maintained well and we have to write all these things down that I've just mentioned, it's going to take longer and the report is going to be much longer.

All right?

And so you want that report for that buyer to be as short as possible as far as defects or little things that need to be fixed, all right?

Whether it's major or minor.

So allow sufficient time.

That's my overarching point here of this is it's at least going to be three hours if it's an older, bigger house.

You know, we've.

We've scheduled all day for houses if they're big.

You're probably looking at more like five or six hours for that unless you bring another inspector along.

So just allow for it.

I understand.

You got a life to live.

You got to get back in your house, you got to make dinner for your kids, etc.

You got to get pets and so forth, but allow sufficient time.

Don't rush the inspector.

You want them to do a good job and not rush things or make judgment calls and stuff that are not accurate.

If the property is vacant, make sure the Utilities are on.

If we get there and the water is off, the gas is off, the electric is off, any of those three, we can't do our jobs.

We can do part of it, but somebody has to pay for us to come back.

So make sure all the utilities are on.

Make sure there's no hindrances to a complete and full home inspection while we're there.

Another way.

Well, this seems obvious, but make sure keys are available for locked doors.

If you have a room in the basement that you typically keep locked, unless there's a specific reason you don't want us in there, you need to let us know.

But if you don't have a reason, have the key available so we can check it.

We're going to just assume that, or we just can't assume that everything's okay in a room.

We have to look at it to know.

Same with a garage.

Make sure we can get in the garage, a shed, an outbuilding, whatever would need inspected.

Make sure we have access to that.

All right, here's a big one.

Allow access to components such as electrical boxes and attic accesses.

If we cannot get to an electrical panel to open it, we will have to recommend coming back or have an electrician come out and do it.

And they're going to charge more than we will.

All right, so make sure that a lot of times electrical panels are in basements or garages and people store things around them because it's not always a place you're going to go a lot.

But make sure that stuff is away from the electrical panel so that it can be easily accessible.

Same with the attic.

If we can't use a ladder to get in it, we're gonna have to come back.

And that costs everybody time, money and frustration.

Those are probably the two biggest things is attic accesses and electrical panels.

Make sure they're accessible so the inspector doesn't have to come back because that just wastes everybody's time.

Same with objects around water heaters and furnaces or air conditioners, more so the first two water heaters and furnaces.

There's inspectors are reasonable people.

We're going to move things if we need to to get a good view.

But there's sometimes that the you as the seller have stacked so many things in front of those appliances, we're not even beginning to move it.

Or if it's some item that could be broken or some items that are just too heavy to move, we're not going to move them.

Going to be reasonable, but we're not going to take 20 minutes to move stuff around, your water heater that needs to be away from it.

So get those areas cleared out so we have easy access.

Now, if you have a room where you have stored items and they're in front of a regular wall or an outlet or a window, you know, it's not as big of a deal when we can't open every window or check every outlet, but it is a big deal if we can't check the attic, the electrical panel, a water heater, or a furnace.

Those are all potentially major components with major issues.

And we need to be in there, be able to see in it or enter it.

You know, another little thing, and this hasn't applied too much in recent years, but if we've just got a snowfall, shoveling the walk or the driveway, clearing the driveway is not a bad idea.

One, it helps inspectors in and out.

It helps buyers come in and out.

It helps us to keep from tracking snow into the house.

So if you can clean that off ahead of time, you know, the inspections, the next day, we just got five inches of snow.

Go clean that off.

That goes a long way toward a good inspection and helping to keep your house clean and dry.

And this is a big one.

And we'll wrap it up with this.

Pets.

Pets be problematic, and a lot of you love them.

I love dogs, and they're.

They're great with you, but when there's a stranger in the house and you're not there, they just act differently.

In most cases, there's some breeds, they'll just lay there and look at you the whole time, you know, even in a kennel.

So at the very least, if your dog is not a barker or your cat is, you know, you're able to put it.

Put it in a kennel, all right, A little pet carrier or whatever, Inspectors don't want really anything to do with your pets on an inspection.

We've had folks in the past said, oh, my dog doesn't bite or it doesn't bark.

Well, it doesn't when you're there.

But when you're not there, pets like the protective side of them come out.

We've had inspectors attacked by cats.

I've been attacked by a cat.

We've shown up and had German shepherds running free in the house because the people, the sellers think they're harmless.

But that puts inspectors really on edge.

And worst case, we're not going in.

We're not going to risk our health if we can help it over a pet.

And so, you know, even if you have a little, you know, like little dogs like Yorkshire terriers or that type of dog.

Those tend to bark a lot.

Right.

And so if you put that in a kennel, it can't get out, but it might bark the whole inspection.

And that's very distracting.

Distracting to the inspector, distracting to the homeowner.

And we just recommend you remove pets that we're going to make any noise or be any problem.

We know it's inconvenient.

We know that you have a life to live, but we also know you're trying to sell this house and we're trying to make it as easy as possible.

Right.

So just some tips there.

Allow time, allow proper access to everything, remove pets.

And that's going to go a long way toward helping your inspection go well, toward the inspection report being much shorter and helping the transition to close.

And you can move on with your life like you're planning.

Thank you for listening.

This week you can catch up on the latest episode of the Thoughts from the Crawl Space podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

For more information about Gold Key inspection services, go to goldkeyinspect.com.