Navigating Home Inspections What Every Buyer Needs to Know

March 5, 2024

125. Navigating Home Inspections What Every Buyer Needs to Know

This episode dives into the critical world of home inspections with expert Mike McLendon, unveiling the often-overlooked secrets behind the walls of a house, Mike shares invaluable insights that could save potential homeowners from the unseen pitfalls that lurk in properties, whether brand new or decades old. This episode explores why home inspections are not just a step in the buying process but a pivotal decision that could impact one's biggest investment. From discussing the emotional rollercoaster of house hunting to the technical aspects of ensuring a home is safe and sound, this episode is packed with advice, personal anecdotes, and the reality of dealing with home damages post-disaster. Whether you're a first-time buyer or a seasoned homeowner, this episode is a must-listen, offering a comprehensive guide to making informed decisions and protecting your home against potential disasters. 

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Transcript

George Siegal: 0:00

Ever wonder what secrets lie behind the walls of your home, would you agree? It's in your best interest to find out what might be wrong before you become the owner of the house. Today, we're joined by Mike McClendon, a home inspector whose expertise has saved countless homeowners from unseen pitfalls. With Mike's deep dive into home inspection essentials, learn why a thorough check is your best ally, no matter if it's brand new or has seen decades passed by its windows. I'm George Siegal, and this is Home Owners Be Aware the podcast that teaches you everything you need to know about being a homeowner. Mike, thank you so much for joining me today.

Mike McLendon: 0:41

Happy to be here, we're glad to be with you and talk about some of these important issues with you today.

George Siegal: 0:46

Yeah, there's some really important ones, so let's jump right into it and talk about. As a home inspector, what is the reason why should home buyers take a home inspection so seriously? Tell us how important that part of the process is.

Mike McLendon: 1:03

In the general view of not just Florida-based but any potential home buyer coming into a transaction, the purpose of a home inspection is to sort of give you a much deeper look into the home that you're getting ready to purchase.

Mike McLendon: 1:22

For most people, a home is the single biggest individual purchase that they're going to make in their life. There's a lot of emotion that goes into that. When we look for homes, when we want to see happen in a home, so right off the top, just in general, too often when we're shopping for houses and stuff, it's about neighborhood, it's about areas, it's about design, it's about stuff that I want to see and these kind of things, and those are all important. Those are the things that end up giving us the memories and everything else that we carry with us for the rest of our life. But in our marketing materials we say that the home inspection we call it the moment of truth, though, and all that we're the emotion of buying a home meets the realities of what that home really is, and that's really where the home inspector comes into things in this transaction.

George Siegal: 2:27

I like to say that a lot of people are more concerned about the icing on the cake than they are the ingredients. And so I know, because I've been in the position many times where you're hoping the inspector doesn't find anything and it's really kind of the other way around you want them to find stuff because if they don't, you're going to end up paying for it yourself.

Mike McLendon: 2:47

Well, and that's true. And intellectually, you know, most people know that they want their inspector to find something, but emotionally they don't. Yeah, it's what it is. I mean, I've been fortunate, I've been doing home and so I've owned my home inspection business. We celebrate 25 years in business last September.

George Siegal: 3:12

Congratulations.

Mike McLendon: 3:14

Yeah, we hit 25 years, To my knowledge. I'm up in the Panhandle of Florida. We're the largest, the longest continually operating home inspection company in the Panhandle up here. But it's funny, I have seen during the course of an inspection, you know where you know somebody is joining us for the inspection and they're so excited and they show up and you know I can see them. They've been HGTV to death with all the plans that they're going to do to this place.

Mike McLendon: 3:48

And then during the course of the inspection, you know we're going well, hey, I need you to see this. And look, we noticed this here. And, and you know, there's one particular story that just has always stayed with me this, this young couple, and just throughout these three hours I just watched their whole outnit change. You know there's as much overhouse and it turned out there were some, some significant underlying issues with this thing, you know. But the reality is is that, even though emotionally, honestly, this young lady, by the time we were left she was kind of crushed emotionally but at the same time intellectually she understood this would have been a nightmare, you know, had we come into this house.

George Siegal: 4:30

Yeah, I mean, if you think about how the process goes, you're looking for houses, you find something, you kind of fall in love and you go, oh, I can see living here, now let me check and see if it's okay. But you would never call you in when you're just house hunting because you would be a waste of time and money. I mean you have to. You almost have to fall in love first and then have your heart broken.

Mike McLendon: 4:50

You do, you know I mean and you do, but but fortunately the end, even the industry has changed in the time that I've been doing this. You know, and I remember in my early days, even within the real estate industry, we weren't as welcomed as we are today. You know, and in my early and I thought again, I started this in 1998. And in the early days there were still a lot of those sort of old school people that have been in real estate for years. You know that, saw, if you ask home inspectors, oh they're just guys that's out there to kill deals, so they're just there to complicate things. But even through these decades the real estate industry has grown, it's gotten educated and and frankly, my experience, it's like any industry.

Mike McLendon: 5:41

You know, there are people, there are individuals in particular industries that are maybe not as above board as they need to be, but the majority of real estate agents that I deal with they don't want there to be issues with the home, they want this transaction to go smooth and they want that client to be very happy, even in the years afterwards, you know. So that's another thing that I've seen change. Is that the real estate industry, or to the point where there are a lot of firms that you know once you cite, you know once you like, you say, once you see it, once you fall in love, you put your, your name on that contract. The first thing the real estate agent now is telling their clients is we recommend that you get a home inspection.

George Siegal: 6:26

Yeah, and I've had a builder. I've had a builder that actually said here's a list of inspectors I will not let on my property and that kind of worries me then about the builder. I mean, yeah, maybe that man or woman inspector was was nitpicky, or maybe they were just catching a lot of the builders mistakes.

Mike McLendon: 6:43

Exactly. You know and it's funny because that's another thing that has changed. In my early days, builders would be practically offended if somebody was asking to have a home inspector come in and they would try to throw up roadblocks to us and stuff. And I remember a couple of times I would say give me five minutes with a builder and I'll get him to understand that this is a win-win for him. And this is how my conversation would go with these builders. I'd say listen, I Assume that you're trying to build the best house you can build, right? He goes yeah, of course I am. You know, we, we believe in what we do. Blah blah, blah blah. That's fine, you're not here, you're not on this job site for every nail that's driven, every wire that's pulled, every, every pipe that's put in here. You're just not here for every one of those. So what you've got happening here is you have somebody else Paying to do a checkup on all the subs that you're using.

Mike McLendon: 7:44

Yeah because if you have a subcontractor who's cutting corners, you may not know it and you've got somebody else paying to check up on that, so where is the downside here for you? And Literally, they would go, they go. I never thought about that way.

George Siegal: 8:03

Yeah, I mean it's good to hear. I don't know that a few of the builders I've worked with would have thought that way, but because they would have thought they were above mistakes.

Mike McLendon: 8:12

Well, and there is that and and there's a particular builder in our area that I'm not gonna name. We, you know, we're not gonna do that but they have.

Mike McLendon: 8:23

In Incredibly and there are large, large home builder but they've thrown up Incredibly big roadblocks to us making us increase our, our insurance, the liability insurance things. They say you're not allowed to get up on the roof, you're not allowed to go into the attic spaces and they're claiming all these liability issues and stuff. But again, I'm like you, it makes me wonder why I do not want us going there, you know.

George Siegal: 8:53

Oh yeah, you have to go in the attic, you have to go up on the roof.

Mike McLendon: 8:56

Yeah, yeah you know, and? But we tell the clients, you know. You know your builder is restricting us from doing this. We just want you to know. That's part of our standards. But if they tell us we can't, we can't, it's their property. You know, until they close on that house, that property, they own it, you know. And but again, of all the builders we've got in our area, this is just one that the actual largest home builder that we have in our area Welcomes us. They, they put up literally zero roadblocks to us. They're helping us. They want to know are we missing anything? Tell me what's going on, we'll get right on it. So again it's. It's like everything in any industry there are really good players. They're there. They're not so good players, you know. But that's where we come in, because you know.

Mike McLendon: 9:46

Going back to your original question, you know we are an Uninterested third party. I get paid whether that person buys that house or not. That's it. I mean. You know my, my, my. Everything ends with this, with this one, one job for me. If they buy the house, great, they love me.

Mike McLendon: 10:07

Quite frankly, if they end up not buying the house Because of what we found, they love me more sometimes because they go wow, you saved us from a nightmare, you know, and and so, but that's what, that's what we, that's what we bring to the table is Everybody else not everyone, almost Everybody else involved in this transaction has a vested interest in this house closing, you know, and we don't.

George Siegal: 10:40

That's good. I'm glad to hear a good builder story, because inevitably we only hear about the bad ones. Most people don't. I don't know many people that have raved about their builder, although I know there are a lot of great ones. It's the people that are unhappy that make the most noise.

Mike McLendon: 10:54

Well, that's exactly right, and it's the same way with any, with any industry. The unhappy people, you know, you know they'll. They'll tell a hundred people too. You know, I'm the president of that team, that's that's my team.

George Siegal: 11:05

I, I, I live that life now. It's interesting. I met you in Panama City where we were shooting for our documentary film built to last buyer beware and you educated me on something that I thought was fascinating. I'm always leery of woodhouses I think they're an accident waiting to happen, especially in Florida but you showed me how it's possible to build woodhouses that may not withstand the most powerful storms, but they sure give you a good chance. Tell us about what somebody should be looking for, and by the time you come in it's too late. You almost have to know that they did this before the walls are closed up.

Mike McLendon: 11:38

And that's true. Yeah, and with some of the things is, when we shot that documentary, of course, we were in a house that was partially constructed, so why all the framing was open. But yeah, you know, in in Florida, you can almost take the state of Florida and cut it in half from north to south and and essentially from Tampa or Lando, that kind of line up there north, the majority of home building up here is wood, frome and, and there are some very Economic reasons for that as far as availability of raw materials and things like that. This is a, you know, the timber market for this part of the ink is all in north Florida. So, you know, wood, timber, lumber, it's just, it's just far more affordable. But but the building codes that they've been in, instituted in Florida, take, take that into account. So, so a good majority of your houses spent, especially houses that are being built along the coast.

Mike McLendon: 12:34

You know, within that, within the what we call these high wind corridors and stuff, even though there there would frame, you know we're doing a lot of things that you know, visually we were able to see is, is, is that the lumber themselves, is. You know, traditionally we think of houses being built with just two by fours, you know, and a lot of the wood framing is two by sixes. First of all so that just gives you a lot, a lot more stiffness. The spacing of how they, they run these, you know, up and down is up or closer together. So essentially the whole, the whole structure is just stiffer to begin with. But then there's the number of anchors that that that we're using when we build, when we build homes these days too, and so you know, we've all, if you're, if you bought or sold in Florida or you live in a Florida house, we all heard the term hurricane clips and and things like this, you know. But but hurricane clips, these kind of thing, that's sort of just the minimum, that that's the minimum requirement, you know.

Mike McLendon: 13:39

But what? What we're doing in newer construction and higher end newer construction, again, construction that is now required in these, in these high wind zones and stuff is, is we're anchoring these houses too. Because, again it's, it's generally when a when a house suffers a catastrophic failure during these herds and these high wind things, it's not just the force of the wind, it's the vacuums and the pressures that can be created when a small portion of the house may fail and maybe something as simple as a window being busted out within the pressures that can come on the inside of that house start creating pressures in a direction that our building wouldn't always design for. We were building from the wind coming outside in, not inside out, and those kinds of things and stuff. So but hopefully people will watch the documentary because it'll be great to see visually.

Mike McLendon: 14:40

But we're anchoring all the way from the slab to the very top of the house and it doesn't matter if it's a single story, two story, three story. We have continuous connections now with bolts and anchor rods and cables and things like that that are tied in from the very bottom of the house that go all the way through the framing to the very top and essentially what we're trying to do is keep that house down and connected to everything and that's gonna be around the entire perimeter of the home. And so if you're in the market and say you're having a home built, if you're having a home constructed, these are conversations you should have with your builder. What are the minimum codes for my area for this and can we exceed those codes? What would be the cost difference? Because sometimes there are some things that the cost difference can be substantial, but sometimes maybe not so much. It's a matter of a couple of extra bolts and things like this, and maybe that's worth a little bit more to give you that extra strength.

George Siegal: 15:54

Well, to anchor a house like the one you showed us, where you do the foundation to the first floor, second floor all the way up to the roof. That doesn't seem like that would add a tremendous amount of cost to a project.

Mike McLendon: 16:06

I agree with you. Probably the most expensive part of that would be the engineering plans. The actual material and labor is nothing, but it's like anything. You're submitting these drawings and stuff like that. You've got to have certified engineers do this, so there are some professional fees involved in that, but the actual cost of doing the work itself is from which would be minimal. It would be minimal, but it's the kind of thing you have to plan up Again if you're in a where you're having a house belt. It's the thing. You've got to have those conversations early because you've got to get it in the plan. It's harder to somehow in the middle of a go oh, I want to do this kind of thing. It's possible, but probably a little more difficult.

Mike McLendon: 16:54

One of the other things too that we're doing because we talked about the impact and the failures too is our openings. Again, and, believe it or not, the weakest part of all our construction whether it be wood frame construction, whether it be masonry construction, block, those kinds of things the weakest part of it are our openings. We have to go in and out of houses. We got to have doors, we got to have windows, we want light, we want all of those things and we're not. We don't want to live in a tank, nobody wants to live in a tank, and which would be the safest right, but we always got to have that balance. So our openings are another thing, that there are things you can do to strengthen those openings.

Mike McLendon: 17:41

In the house that we looked at, they were using what we call impact rated windows. So those windows are rated for what in Florida, what we call a large missile impact rating is what they're called, and essentially what that means in real life is for it to pass that test. They shoot a nine pound two before that thing and I want to say it's like 30 miles an hour and it's got to withstand it.

Mike McLendon: 18:10

And same thing with doors, entry doors, and so even solid doors have to have a certain impact rating. We tend to think of windows and stuff, and this is where a lot of consumers I've talked to home buyers and they go oh yeah, I've got hurricane windows, and unfortunately people use those terminologies and oftentimes windows can have wind rates, which means this window is designed to withstand a certain mile per hour wind, but it may not be rated for impact, and so they're two different things and very often, again, salespeople whatever oh, hurricane window.

George Siegal: 18:51

Sure.

Mike McLendon: 18:51

Hurricane winds. They may be, but some people think sometimes they're more protected than they really are within. They're not, maybe not impact rated, and there's other ways to provide impact rating too. If you're in an existing home and you wanna, because the question like, well, what can I do? I'm in an older home, what are things I can do to strengthen my home? Because I can't clearly rebuild it, I can't go do all these things from the get go here, but one of the easiest ways that things that we can do is to strengthen our openings. You can do it by replacing your windows with impact rating. They have rated. If you've lived in Florida, you've seen people with coverings and different things that they cover their windows and doors with. That can add that impact protection and so on and those are nice because they're things you can put on and take off.

Mike McLendon: 19:47

They don't have to be on there 24-7. So one nice thing about hurricanes they typically don't sneak up on us, so we have time to prep and prepare for them.

George Siegal: 19:56

So one of the criticisms I've heard of wood and again, I'm not, I don't, you know, market myself as an expert, it's just the people I talk to and I try to, you know, get the best information possible is because of the termite problem that we have in Florida, that when you have a wood structure and whether it's siding, that's on there, or stucco, whatever you cover it with, once water gets in there, then you get. You get rot, you get mold, you get termites, and that seems to be the bigger concern and why they say block is in a lot of instances better. What are your thoughts on how you have to maintain it if you do have a woodhouse?

Mike McLendon: 20:32

Yeah, and again, you know, if cost is not an issue, if everything's an even playing field, you know the answer is is a blockhouse probably better? You know my answer would be yes, it is, but costs are a factor, you know. They factor into every, every part of everything we do in our lives and stuff. So, yeah, so it's like anything, block homes can also get termites and they can get water and they can get all those kind of things. The first two homes that I owned were in Jacksonville, florida, which is North Florida, but they were both concrete block homes, you know, but my roof and structure and everything wasn't there, and in both of those I had termites up in my roof. You know termites are, they're terminal little buggers. You know there's a will, there's a way, you know. So that's an issue for all of us. But you're right that you know, once you introduce water to wood you're creating the environment for for termites, you know, because, again, termites need two things to survive, like anything, they need food and water. You know, unfortunately, food is a lot of the materials we build with, so our defense is to keep water away and again in.

Mike McLendon: 21:52

So again, the answer to the question, in very basic, is preventative maintenance. You keep up. You keep your house treated. There are very effective termite treatments out there today and typically most most termite companies. Once you have a house treated, they will offer a bond which is like an insurance policy to come along with it. So once they treat it, they're bonding you against future damage as long as you maintain your treatments with them. Even if you were to end up getting termites or having damage done, you know they would be obligated to make the repairs for those, and it's like anything. Have it inspected regularly, you know. So what it boils down to in a short answer is it's preventative maintenance. You know and keep up with what you're doing.

George Siegal: 22:44

Now, if you walk around your house with a thermal camera, would that show you maybe where there's water intrusion or that there's some kind of something going on behind those walls? Is that any value?

Mike McLendon: 22:53

It is a value, it's not a, it's not x-ray. It's not x-ray. So a thermal camera shows basically the surface temperature and you're looking at, and even some of the most powerful ones. And again, the thermal camera that you're a home inspector is going to have or somebody that's doing that kind of stuff, it's not going to be these 20, 30, 40, $50,000 cameras that you see in all your military videos that you watch, you know. So they're going to be limited in their scope but they could identify a significant problem.

Mike McLendon: 23:32

We use thermal cameras in our inspection. Not every home inspector does, but it is an option that we do and it can very easily. A thermal camera probably can't show you well, look, you've got termites right there. If it did, it would be pretty much a massive investigation that probably you would have found anyway. But what a thermal camera can do is it can alert you to moisture problems. Going back to your earlier question about getting water into things and stuff, because as materials get wet, you know if we're getting water intrusion into you know into that cavity between the outside of the house and the drywall that we see on the inside. If you're getting water in there, that water is changing the temperature of whatever it's touching, and that's what an infrared, that's what a thermal camera does. It sees temperature, so it can sometimes very well be a glues into an area that we've got a substantial temperature difference in this wall right here and that needs to be investigated to figure out why. Why is this happening here?

George Siegal: 24:45

Okay Now another problem I have that I've seen happen because it's happened to me and it's happened to me in multiple houses that I've owned is that whoever built it did a half ass job on engineering it for air conditioning and heat. So certain rooms get warmer, certain rooms are colder, and, for example, the office that I'm sitting in right now. I had to put a split system air conditioning unit in it because the temperature was always four degrees warmer than the rest of the house and some people will go that's not a big deal. Well, if you keep your house at 78 degrees and your office is at 82, it's a very big deal.

George Siegal: 25:18

How do you catch those things?

Mike McLendon: 25:20

And again, that would be something that would be difficult during the course of a normal home inspection to be quite on to. That's probably something that is not going to be caught. That would be outside of our scope of expertise.

George Siegal: 25:35

Yeah, I've never caught it.

Mike McLendon: 25:36

No, no, no. And now, if you were specifically wanting to check that, you would probably have to hire an HVAC company to go in and do that. And it's a good thing for me to let you know and let your viewers and listeners know too, because as a home inspector, I come into a house we have roughly about three hours. Is what about how much about what we spend in an average size house? And here's what I tell people said as a home inspector, we have to be a little bit of an expert and a whole bunch of different trades. You know we're.

Mike McLendon: 26:16

I'm not a licensed roofer, I'm not a licensed electrician, I'm not a licensed plumber, I'm not a licensed H bag guy. We have to know a little bit enough About those trades to identify major concerns and issues and things like that. You know. So what we do do and I will take in the course of my time and doing home inspections. In the course of a home Inspection, though, sometimes you just walk into a room and you instantly go. This room seems warmer, you know, I feel it. Am I obligated, under my standards of practice, to Note that in my home inspection? Probably not, because I can't specify, specify why. There could be a lot of reasons, but it's an easy enough thing to say this needs to be further investigated.

George Siegal: 27:07

You know, yeah, I wish everybody would do that.

Mike McLendon: 27:09

I mean, that cost me a lot of money to fix that sure, yeah, yeah and but, um, but even, and again, I'm not trying to defend, you know, the different trades or anything like that, but the reality is is you can do the best formulas because typically, just on the specific issue with an HVAC system, you know there are formulas. They use a square footage of a house, cubic feet, this and that, and that's just a math formula that they use as far as how they lay that out. But then you get into this specific specifics of a room and sometimes just where the sun comes in, or, and too often, what will happen is that plan gets done during the planning stages and and this is probably the most common cause of like a situation that maybe you're in but then during the course of building, they go oh, we want this wall moved over to here or there, and they make some slight adjustments, not understanding the cascading Consequences that it can happen to man, you're a lot nicer than I am.

George Siegal: 28:10

I think they're saving money and they go Okay, let's just throw this together, but, but, but I like your attitude a lot better. I think you have a better approach. Now Tell me about the my safe Florida home Program and how people can utilize that when they're buying a house.

Mike McLendon: 28:22

Yeah, now, the my safe Florida home is something that Florida has. It's actually not new. It actually came back, originated back in the 2000s. There was a year I don't remember the exact year there was one year where they had four major storms Chris Cross across Florida and it just was devastating and and afterwards they they instituted this and it was a program to help homeowners Strengthen or they used to work harden their homes Against storms. So it's gone through a number of iterations and then, of course, the economy went bad and the funding went away for it. So it it never really went away, but it sort of Was dying on the vine out there because there was just simply no money in the budget for it.

Mike McLendon: 29:09

But over these last couple years, the government here in Florida and the legislator have has made it a priority to fund it, and so the my safe Florida home program is a program where, first of all, you they've got they've got their website. I think it's just my safe Florida home that you can go to, you can register and the first thing you can do is you can get a free home inspection. Now, it's not the kind of home inspection that you would do when you're purchasing a house, but it's a. It's an inspection specifically designed to to identify Ways, things in your home that you could do that would strengthen or harden your home against hurricanes and high wind events. So it gives you a roadmap. And, just for full disclosure, I'm not doing that. I don't work for the my safe Florida home program and I don't. I don't get any work from them, so everybody's clearing that. But it's a. It's a free resource that's out there for any resident in the state of Florida, first of all, and then, depending on the funding bill, I was like, right now, before we started here, they, the legislator, just authorized another hundred and seventy six million dollars to it, but the program right now is at a standstill because that additional hundred seventy six million was allocated to fund the applications that are already been submitted, and so it this exists exact point in time. Right now they're not taking new applications. There's tens and tens of thousands that are already in there, but it's a good problem to keep an eye on, because here's what's great about the program if you do Certain these things, and when we say certain things, we're talking about new types of roofs, putting in hurricane cliffs, impact windows, that all these different things that we've been talking about, that you can do. If you do some of these, you can actually get grants To offset the cost. They will, they they're not paying for all of it. But there I think I want to say, if I remember, they will sometimes pay up to half of what the cost are and Stuff. So so it's a great resource that's out there. And like, say, even if they're not, if you're at a point when you go off just heard about this anymore but they're not taking, you can still get the free Inspections and at least for you, give you a roadmap and you might go oh, this is something I could do, or we could do this and we could do that.

Mike McLendon: 31:31

The other benefit that comes with this is of not only obviously just making your house far more prepared for a hurricane, but but it can also garner you significant discounts on your homeowner's insurance.

Mike McLendon: 31:45

One of the things, one of the things we do here in Florida when you buy, when you go to insure your house, most of our insurance company asked for what we call a wind mitigation inspection form done, and the entire purpose of this form is to see if you qualify for certain wind credits in a house. So if you're living in an older home and you don't have hurricane clips, that's not an incredibly difficult thing to retrofit and it's not horribly expensive. If you were to add hurricane clips to your house, you Could have a wind mitigation done, showing. You know, have this and just that. One thing in some instances Can reduce your policy by a thousand dollars or more a year at times and stuff. So these other things, even if you're not getting state money or what have you, oh, some of these improvements can more than pay for themselves in the reductions You'll get in your homeowners insurance too.

George Siegal: 32:44

Yeah, everybody should really think about what they need to do to make their home as safe as possible, because they'll see in our film, they could see in my last film, the last house standing when you become a victim of a disaster and you've lived that yourself After Hurricane Michael it's a long road back, isn't it?

Mike McLendon: 33:03

It's a long road back. We had a hurricane Michael in 2018. I live in an older home. My house was built in the 80s, so in the 80s there weren't certain requirements that are here today and we suffered fairly catastrophic damage. You know, on our home and Probably the in my home, to be completely Put back to get was almost a year. Took me just shy of a year to get everything back to to where it was before and it's not.

George Siegal: 33:31

It's not fun, it's not, and I'm always crushing insurance, the insurance industry, but you actually had a good experience, as you told us, but it still took a year.

Mike McLendon: 33:42

It still took a year, yeah, and so, yeah, I was fortunate. I mean, honest to goodness, the insurance company that I was with I didn't have to battle them, I didn't have to argue with them. They, their gesture, came out. He missed some stuff. We did a supplemental claim and they didn't dispute anything that I was asking for. So, again, I was. You know, I was fortunate in that. But yet still, the biggest problem that you suffer during the, during the hurricane, is is this not isolated? Your issue is not isolated, and so that's what makes it like just to talk about bad luck here. I don't know if it had happened when you were here, but in January I think it may have been right. I don't remember the date we did.

George Siegal: 34:27

The ninth, I think it was.

Mike McLendon: 34:28

Yeah, I got hit by a tornado.

George Siegal: 34:31

Yeah, Did you have damage from that? Your house was do you come out of there?

Mike McLendon: 34:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah. As a matter of fact, tomorrow I have another roof being installed, I have new roofing, but on tomorrow.

George Siegal: 34:43

So we saw that house in Panama City. That tipped over, yes that's right.

Mike McLendon: 34:47

That's right. I can't remember our time. That's right. It had just happened. It had just happened. But yeah, but what's been different this time? And it's been interesting because we're talking five years apart here. It's almost comical. I've been a native of Florida. I've lived here literally my entire life. I'm in my 60s and I've been through hurricanes before, but the hurricane Michael in 18, was really the first time I suffered any real damage, and then five years later I got tornados.

George Siegal: 35:21

That was quite a tornado and the path that it took. We saw some houses that were just obliterated by it.

Mike McLendon: 35:26

They were older, yeah yeah, and again I was very fortunate because, even though my claim was still a little substantial structurally, I had no structural damage this time. But again, I garnered some of that too, some of the upgrades that I did in putting my house back together after Hurricane Michael, because I did.

Mike McLendon: 35:51

I took some of those steps to strengthen it, some of the framing and things like that. As we were putting our house together, we upgraded, exceeded what were the codes back in the 80s when my house was originally built and things like that. But yeah, the bigger struggle and kind of going back, and I know we're going to start with a little bit, but the reason these are such good investments up front is when you are trying to do repairs after a significant hurricane event, just the availability of materials, of contractors and scheduling and things like that just make the process that much harder. So whatever you can do up front to keep yourself from having to be in those positions is so much better.

George Siegal: 36:36

And the reason that building codes matter. I had a recent podcast guest Roy Wright, ibhs, where they do safety tests of structures, and he showed us that the newer codes can save a lot of houses from tornadoes maybe not an EF-5 that rolls right over your house, but the one that hit Panama City. Certainly the older structures took it a lot worse than the newer ones.

Mike McLendon: 36:59

Absolutely, and even in Hurricane Michael, that was what was striking to me as I drove around. And I drove there because, again, I've been inspecting now in this area for 20 plus years, right, so you know, these are the older neighborhoods, these are the newer construction neighborhoods and stuff, and as I went through, just drove through those neighborhoods, you could see very distinctive differences to the level of destruction, you know. And as the newer homes, again, were there some catastrophic failures of newer homes? Yeah, there were, but there were much fewer of them than there were of older homes.

Mike McLendon: 37:42

Yeah exactly right. Building codes do make a difference.

George Siegal: 37:45

It's awful to see that kind of damage. So let's wrap this up with some action items for people. I'm getting a house, buying a house new, old, whatever. What should I look for in a home inspector? What should I want to have a feeling of as I'm hiring that individual?

Mike McLendon: 38:01

Okay.

Mike McLendon: 38:02

So when you're interviewing a home inspector, here's some questions you answered, of course. The first obvious question are you licensed? Make sure he's licensed. I mean, that sort of seems obvious, but make sure he's licensed. Make sure he carries E&O insurance. E&o stands for Errors and Emissions Insurance. Okay, and that's an insurance there to protect you. And Casey does a bad inspection, we carry it. We are not required by the state of Florida to carry it. It's an option, so something they should carry.

Mike McLendon: 38:32

Two, will he let you come along during the inspection? You've got home inspectors. No one wants you there. Talk to someone else, just talk to someone else. You need to be able to have conversations. Now if he says, well, I don't want you there for the whole thing, I want you to come near the end, that's fine, you know, because you get a little gab. He's trying to get his work done, that's fine. You don't want to distract him, but you want a guy that you can have a conversation with and that you can ask questions to, and he's willing to take the time to explain to you what your concerns are. And number two, and the last thing too, is make sure you tell him what your concerns are.

Mike McLendon: 39:10

One of our standard things. When we're booking an inspection, when we talk to the client, they give us the address, blah, blah, blah. And then one of the questions we always ask is was there anything in particular during your walkthroughs at the house that you were concerned about? Now, sometimes there's silly things and that's okay, but we want to know what are your concerns? You know, what is it that you? You know was you did your walkthroughs, did you see anything? You went, ooh, what about that? You know. And so these are the kind of things that, if they're not willing to have those kind of conversations with you, there's plenty of guys that will.

George Siegal: 39:45

Yeah, and guys and men and women, we want to say that. Of course yes, Because I had the email inspectors on that man I'd be afraid of if I was a builder, because those ladies are tough. It's you know it's an important job and you really don't want to throw that away. So hopefully people will heed this advice. I mean, that's great information. And then the typical cost of an inspection usually the range would be what?

Mike McLendon: 40:11

Probably. I'd say on average in Florida you're probably looking to do $500, $700. There are different variations that typically how big your house is gonna be more smaller houses, different add-ons, different services, things like that. Probably in that range.

George Siegal: 40:25

And people should also understand don't gloss over problems, because if it's a problem when you're looking at it in the beginning, it's probably gonna be a problem down the road, and those things don't fix themselves, do they?

Mike McLendon: 40:36

That is correct, and they never get better. They may not get worse, but they usually do.

George Siegal: 40:43

Yeah, I think I can attest to that. So, hey, Mike, thank you so much for coming on today. Your contact information, how people can reach out to you, we'll all be in the show notes of the podcast, but I really appreciate your time.

Mike McLendon: 40:56

Absolutely, it's great.

George Siegal: 40:57

I know a lot of you have stories good and bad about your experiences as a homeowner. There's a contact form in the show notes. Fill it out and I look forward to having you on a podcast to share your story. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next time.