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Oswego, NY
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Gaston, Oregon
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 Fix this.
[#2] Posted: 04/22/2012 - 09:42:49 AM |  |  |
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Reason number 307 why I don't talk till the end of the inspection.
I'll never understand this fear of reinspections. What's the big deal? You come back, look at the deck, tell them it's still screwed up, collect your fee, and leave. Repeat as necessary.
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Jim Katen, Oregon
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Chicago, IL
Posts: 9501
Joined: Dec, 2003
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Fix this.
[#3] Posted: 04/22/2012 - 10:05:10 AM | | |
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Exactly.
I also don't understand the fear of talking about what's screwed up in front of everyone. If one has their facts right, and in this case, that's pretty simple, why not close it out?
The more I operate that way, the better business gets. As soon as I'm gone, and I'm not part of the narrative, realtors take over and we know where that goes.
I brook no nonsense; folks want nonsense, I walk away. They want facts, I talk in short concise, incisive bursts that clear out realtors in one swoop. Client's happy, realtors quiet, problem solved.
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Kurt in Chicago
"If I smell it, it goes in the report".............Phillip Smith...2012
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Oswego, NY
Posts: 1735
Joined: May, 2008
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Fix this.
[#4] Posted: 04/22/2012 - 10:46:14 AM | | |
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It's not about fear with me. It's not worth it to go back and take money for what I already know, won't be right. I told the client what was wrong and who to have deal with it. I'm done.
If it was about the money, I'd become a mold tester.
For that matter, let's say it was an electrical issue. I'm not a licensed electrician. Who the hell am I to go back behind someone with a license?
It's their turn to do what their license claims they're qualified to be responsible for.
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I'm Gary Blum and I approve this message
www.gtbinspectionservices.com |
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Gaston, Oregon
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Fix this.
[#5] Posted: 04/22/2012 - 11:39:00 AM | | |
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| Quote: Originally posted by gtblum
It's not about fear with me. It's not worth it to go back and take money for what I already know, won't be right. I told the client what was wrong and who to have deal with it. I'm done.
If it was about the money, I'd become a mold tester.
How's it different from an initial inspection? You go out there and tell them what you already know then as well. *They don't know it.* That's why they're paying you. It's the same with a reinspection. *They think* it's been done right. They need you to tell them otherwise.
Quote: For that matter, let's say it was an electrical issue. I'm not a licensed electrician. Who the hell am I to go back behind someone with a license?
But that's exactly what you did during your initial inspection. Who the hell are you to include electrical systems in your home inspection when the system was installed by a licensed electrician?
Quote: It's their turn to do what their license claims they're qualified to be responsible for.
And when they screw it up, the customer needs to have someone to turn to for an unbiased evaluation of that work.
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Jim Katen, Oregon
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Northville, New York
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Fix this.
[#6] Posted: 04/22/2012 - 11:49:40 AM | | |
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Gary,
Remember, New York State doesn't license electricians, nor do they test private electrical inspectors. That makes your HI license appear to be the best bet.
Tom Corrigan
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Chicago, IL
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Joined: Dec, 2003
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Fix this.
[#7] Posted: 04/22/2012 - 11:58:40 AM | | |
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Those are good arguments. Reinspections can be problematic, or they can be structured to maximize customer satisfaction and business revenue.
If someone desires to pay me to look at something, who am I to deny these fine people their desires?
I don't much care if someone is licensed for their trade. If all those licensed folks were so darn good, none of us would have a job.
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Kurt in Chicago
"If I smell it, it goes in the report".............Phillip Smith...2012
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Oswego, NY
Posts: 1735
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Oswego, NY
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Chicago, IL
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Fix this.
[#10] Posted: 04/22/2012 - 12:53:00 PM | | |
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It's not hard to quote deck codes. Seems a reasonable place to start.
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Kurt in Chicago
"If I smell it, it goes in the report".............Phillip Smith...2012
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Oswego, NY
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Kenmore, WA
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Fix this.
[#12] Posted: 04/22/2012 - 1:01:53 PM | | |
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I personally don't like to do reinspections.
If someone wants to pay my contract reinspection rate, fine; but I make it clear to them onsite at the first inspection that for reinspections the clock starts when I lock my door at home and it includes travel time to and from, time on site, time writing any follow-up reports they want and any time I waste on the phone arguing with a pissed off builder, owner, contractor or realtor that doesn't like what I've written about the work I didn't like (should I not like it, which is usually the case).
More often than not, though, they want me to come back out dirt cheap and when I refuse they get miffed 'cuz so-and-so down the street does them for free, yadda, yadda, yadda.
When I first got into the business I didn't know any better and I used to do them for free too. Once I got roped into that model, getting out of it and charging for reinspections wasn't as easy as I would have liked it to be; and while I was in it I used to do dozens, many even hundreds, of them a year.
Getting to and from inspections here is a royal pain in the ass with the traffic mess we have; so I have to decide whether I want to try and squeeze one in before or after any inspection I've got scheduled that day or simply not book any full inspections that day. I'm not getting any younger, so trying to do the quick in and out before and after is pretty much out of the question these days. That means when someone else calls up and can only do their inspection on that day they end up hiring someone else. That would be cool if a reinspection always netted more than a full inspection but they don't.
At a lot of them the clients or the realtors, or both, don't respect my time and more often than not try to get me to do an entirely new inspection instead of looking at just the things they'd call me for. There would be the, "I know you're only here to look at the so-and-so, but could you just take a minute to look at the whatziz too? It'll only take a second." Those seconds stretch into minutes and then into quarter hours and then....
Then there is the arguments and drama dealing with the aftermath of the reinspection. I'm not shy about saying that I think someone's repair looks like crap or like a 6-year old did it; so that usually ends up with the listing agent sniveling to the so-called contractor and then the so-called contractor tries to call me up to bully me into agreeing with him, which I never do, and that wastes even more of my time - that's why I charge for those conversations too.
Also, reinspections seem to almost always be scheduled so close to the closing that the buyers go into panic mode when I tell them that the work looks like crap; especially if they've already sold the place they're living in and have to be out yesterday. Sometimes they'll call me up asking me to bless the crap work just so that they can get the damned house, at which point I feel like saying to them, "Well why the hell didn't you just accept it the way it was done instead of paying me to come back and look at it, instead of wasting your money to get results you can't live with?" Of course, I never say that but it gets my hackles up just the same.
If I go to my doctor with a headache and he says, "I think you've got a tumor there. I'm going to refer you to a good neurosurgeon for diagnosis and follow up," and then I go to the neurosurgeon and he confirms there's a tumor there and perform surgery, am I then going to go back to my family care provider and say, "Hey Doc, how about opening up my head and telling me if Doc Neuroman, got all of that tumor out." Probably not. I'm going to rely on that specialist to have done what I paid him to do and if he didn't and I find out about it later I'm going to hold his feet to the fire.
It's the same here; I tell 'em to try and get a credit and hire their own contractors to do the repairs and then to use licensed guys and insist that those guys warrant the work. I tell 'em if the seller insists on getting the work done, to insist on licensed guys that will warrant their work; not the owner's brother-in-law or uncle twice removed, etc..
S'funny, when they were free I was constantly running here and there trying to do 'em and get that last minute memo off, etc., but since I started charging for them and being a stickler for how I charge for them, I only do a few a year - usually to do roofs 'cuz they don't know how to climb up onto a roof to check it themselves, attics 'cuz they're afraid they'll step in the wrong spot and come downstairs really fast, or crawlspaces 'cuz they don't want to go down into that dark hole and roll around in dirt.
Blah, blah, blah - typical O'Handley tome. Bottom line, like I said if they want to pay the rate, fine, but I prefer not to do 'em.
ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!
Mike
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Chicago, IL
Posts: 9501
Joined: Dec, 2003
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Fix this.
[#13] Posted: 04/22/2012 - 1:44:35 PM | | |
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Charge extra.
Makes them less painful.
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Kurt in Chicago
"If I smell it, it goes in the report".............Phillip Smith...2012
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Ferndale, Wa
Posts: 26
Joined: Mar, 2012
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Fix this.
[#14] Posted: 05/04/2012 - 12:29:03 PM | | |
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Mike it is like you jumped into my head and read my thoughts. I hate doing reinspections everyone always wants more than what the originally asked for and then no one is happy because most of the time they hire the cheapest hack around to do the work and then you spend the rest of your evening arguing with someone that claims to have 30 years in the bussiness. Generally not worth it.
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Kenmore, WA
Posts: 15386
Joined: Dec, 2003
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Fix this.
[#15] Posted: 05/04/2012 - 12:59:12 PM | | |
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Yeah,
I'm kinda like Hannibal Lecter that way.
ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!
Mike
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Venice, FL
Posts: 17
Joined: Sep, 2006
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Fix this.
[#16] Posted: 05/07/2012 - 4:06:34 PM | | |
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An angled balcony/deck support is very tricky. Imagine an angled support at 45-degress to the vertical and assume that the load is only 1,000 lbs. downward at the point where the support attaches to the balcony/deck. What is the outward "thrust" on the balcony floor framing that is produced by the fact the one support has a 1,000 lbs. gravity load on it?
The math is 1,000/0.707 or 1,414 lbs. in the angled brace. Then, "outward" in the balcony framing would also be 1,000 lbs.
The worse collapse (in terms of overall movement of framing) I have investigated stemmed from this issue--angled supported at the lowest level of a two level deck.
Frank Woeste
Professor Emeritus
Virginia Tech
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Chicago, IL
Posts: 9501
Joined: Dec, 2003
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Fix this.
[#17] Posted: 05/07/2012 - 4:48:57 PM | | |
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Thanks Frank. As a builder, I always felt it was the lousiest way possible to support a deck. It's interesting to have the numbers.
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Kurt in Chicago
"If I smell it, it goes in the report".............Phillip Smith...2012
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