What Every Homeowner Should Know About Their Home with Reggie Patton

In this episode of The Heart of Donelson-Hermitage, Troy sits down with Reggie Patton, a home inspector he trusts and works with regularly on real estate transactions throughout the Nashville area. Reggie shares his expertise on what homeowners should know about maintaining their homes, preventing costly repairs, and getting their properties ready to sell.

From common inspection findings to practical maintenance tips, this conversation covers the techniques Reggie uses in the field and the red flags every homeowner should watch for. Whether you’re planning to sell, buy, or simply want to protect your investment, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to keep your home in great shape.

Perfect for homeowners in Donelson, Hermitage, and beyond who want to make informed decisions about their most valuable asset.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome to the Heart of Donaldson Hermitage Podcast. I'm your host, Troy Charlton. I'm a real estate agent with 25 years experience here in Tennessee. On this podcast, we get to speak with amazing people and hear their stories that make this community such a special place. Today I'm joined by somebody I've worked alongside with for over 20 years, Home Inspector Reggie Patton. As a realtor, one of the most important decisions I make is who I refer to go in and check out the houses that my buyers are purchasing. Reggie has the unique ability to not just find just about everything he can find, but also share with my buyers what to be concerned about and what to look for down the road. Reggie doesn't minimize the problems. He just simply shares the truth of what needs to be known. So today we're going to tap into Reggie's knowledge. I think you're going to find it interesting, not only what he typically finds, maybe some pretty cool stories about what he has found, but also as a homeowner, maybe if you're thinking about selling how you can better maybe prepare your home. Or even as a homeowner, what do you need to kind of be looking for to keep some of these issues from arising in your house? Oh well, Reggie, thank you for joining me today, man. Absolutely, my brother Troy.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Love it, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Beautiful day on the porch, just coming off a couple of home inspections. Um, and I I was trying to do some math. So Reggie's been doing home inspections just as long as I've been selling real estate. Um we go way back. And I just kind of mathing it out, man. If you do two a day, and I know you don't do two every day, but I mean, are you seven to ten a week?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Uh at minimum, yeah, when we're busy. Yes, sir. Absolutely. So that's 40 a month. That's what, 500 a year? Uh most of the time it's probably a little bit more than that, because yeah, we end up doing sprinkling in re-inspections, sprinkling in third inspections sometimes. So yeah, I I think one year, my most I did was like 650 inspections in a year. So times 20.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Um, he's been under your house, I bet. Um a lot of them. So, and that's awesome. So, I really wanted to do this because man, I I I think about from a lot of places um that can benefit not just as people watch this, if they're a home buyer or a home seller, or even they own a home. I think you bring a knowledge. I know to me, when I sit through an inspection um to where you learn about your house, um, it's one of the largest investments we make. Absolutely. And so some of them are taken care of and and some aren't. So I want to hear some stories, want to kind of get some tidbits here uh on in that regard. But um, but when you do your home inspections, and let's just kind of start there, you yeah, you kind of have a pattern, I guess, of how you run through the house and checklist because um I always say this, I'm not saying you don't ever miss anything because I know. We do, we do, but you don't miss much because I've never had a buyer at the end of your inspection say, uh, I don't know, I didn't feel like I got my money's worth. They honestly say, Man, you know, like, wow. So what's your pattern? What's the path look? How do you now you do that?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Uh well, you learn from experiences and the times where you don't find everything, so that's first and foremost. But uh most of the time it's just about just kind of examining the house. Uh, and this is one of the things that when I'm doing my home buyer's classes that I try to tell my clients or the future clients and also the realtors, it's like, okay, you get so focused on, especially as a new home buyer, you look at the pictures online and everything. Most of the time, they give you a few pictures of the outside of the house. But for the most part, everybody's so anxious to get inside that house and look at the kitchen, look at the granite, look at that bonus room or the man cave or whatever. But I always warn my clients to say, first, before you even step inside of that house, just take a little quick trip around the exterior of the house. Look at the topography around the house. There are a lot of trees. Do you want to clean gutters all the time, or do you want to buy a house on, you know, I always kid people, it's like, yeah, everybody wants to have the house on the hill with the trees, but it's like, do you really want to have a house on the hill where water's gonna be coming through your crawl space all the time? Or have to get up and clean gutters two or three times a year. Or, you know, have to do, you know, get a house that's got uh wood siding or something like that, where you got to do a lot of maintenance. So you try to educate people on the front end because a lot of times, as being a home inspector, a lot of people just move into their houses and they think, hmm, I'm just gonna live here. I'm not gonna worry about maintenance. But as far as my pattern, it's typically it starts from the time I'm on the street driving up to the house. If I'm looking at the house, there's there's a lot of telltale signs. Like again, if I was driving up to this house, I'm looking at all these trees, I'm thinking, okay, the gutters are probably gonna be clogged. There may be some issues with uh maybe foundation or drainage issues underneath the crawl space. So my mind's already working on, okay, what's this crawl space gonna look like? And then you just kind of look at what what how the house is built. Okay, has it got exterior siding? Does it have bricks? So am I gonna be looking for cracks in brick? Am I gonna be looking for loose and vinyl? Uh, and then you kind of just pattern things that way. But typically I'm gonna start on the exterior, walking around the exterior maybe once, twice, uh, just trying to get a get a gauge of any systems that are failing, i.e., most of the time, probably 50% of the time, gutters are a big issue, as you know. Uh, that's one of those issues that, you know, with some regular maintenance, it can prevent big problems. But if it's not maintained, then it can cause big problems. Uh, but you again, you're looking at all those type of things on the exterior, window systems, uh, how much vegetation is around the house, looking at soffits and things like that for pest intrusion. Uh, so yeah, you have to have a pretty critical eye. Um, just walking around the exterior. Uh, then once we get inside, then we just, you know, again, first place I'll typically go was in the kitchen. Start appliances, looking under sink counters, making sure all of the kitchen equipment is working, and then you just kind of start working it room to room. Um, obviously checking light switches, checking ceilings, seeing if there's any moisture stains, checking for leaks, things like that. Um, there it's it's a pretty, you know, it's a pretty extensive list. Uh you get, you know, like I say, I have a I generally have a pattern. If you're looking at my pictures, which you've looked at probably hundreds of times, it'll typically, you know, you'll start on the exterior and then you'll see my kitchen pictures, and then you'll start to see a dining room and then bedrooms and so on and so forth. And we generally end up in the crawl space at the end of it or wherever the uh foundation is. So uh yeah. We have a you typically if you have a pattern, it helps you kind of stay in control. Uh sometimes if you get a little bit out of whack, like this week, um training guys, so I've been pulled away from my pattern, which is a little uncomfortable, but it is helpful too, because I I get to know what my guys that I'm training are doing. But uh yeah, you have to have a routine, in my opinion, to be consistent with your clients for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

I I think kind of knowing that as a home buyer to say, okay, there's somebody that is walking my house with a different set of eyes than a buyer typically does. It's an emotional decision, emotional purchase. A lot of times, as their realtor, I'm walking through because I've seen a lot of houses too. I'm not a home inspector, my eyes go up, you know, roof leaks, my eyes go down, you know, and so where their eyes go to the granite, their eyes go to the, you know, so it's it is a different set of eyeballs that I think a buyer, if I'm buying a house, I need. Right. Because you're about to invest however many hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in something, and and you don't always know what to look. You need to get under the hood. And and I think a home inspection, without a doubt, does that for a buyer that really I do want them to get emotional. I want them to really want to love this house.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Again, we do our due diligence and say, that's great that you like it now. The next step is that home inspector, and Reggie's the man to come do that because that's what you do and do well. So I I've always appreciated the way in which not only you do the inspection, but but present the inspection and share with the buyer that yes, this is a concern. Some inspectors don't like to say that because they're worried they're gonna kill the emotional side of it. But sometimes that emotional side needs to be put in check to now. Here's we're at that point to where this is a financial decision. It's not just an emotional. And I think that's where you come in big on that and do so well. Um, what are what are maybe some things that you say buyers need to look at when they're out investigating houses without before you get involved, that they typically don't. Just that one thing that you say, man, look, go here.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Uh again, looking up, looking down, but roofs. I know a lot of times people don't, I mean, to as an inspector, it'd look very obvious to me, but especially in Middle Tennessee, we've got all these different storms that come through. Look at the roof. Just kind of this, you mean you don't have to be a home inspector to see that you got shingles missing on the roof. Uh, you don't have to be a home inspector to see that there's cracks in your bricks or cracks in your concrete or your HVAC system looks like it. This looks old, you know, uh those type of things, or trees hanging over your roof. Uh, so there's a lot of obvious things. And that and again, that's why I really bear down on my realtors when I'm doing my classes with them. It's like, hey, don't do save your time, save your energy because there's a lot of times where I've done multiple inspections for a single client because they haven't done their due diligence. And I say, look, okay, next time you go and look at these houses, don't just look at the inside, look at the outside. And you have to hammer it into them, but eventually they'll get it. I mean, there's one client of mine, there's a young girl, she was a first-time homebuyer, and I just kept telling her after the first inspection, I felt bad because she was really emotionally invested in the house. Uh, but she had a really rock star agent and rock star, okay. I don't I never tell a client, hey, buy the house or don't buy the house. I just present them with facts and then let you, as the professional, say, hey, okay, this is how we're going to navigate this, mitigate this, or hey, let's walk away from it. Uh, but yeah, she had ended up doing three home inspections. We finally found that one right home for her. But it took me hammering into her, hey, let's slow down. Don't get so excited about all the stuff on the inside. I know you want that extra room for your office or whatever it is, but let's look on the outside first and look at some of the systems. And she finally got it because the first two times she didn't. Second time, I, you know, gave her a kind of uh suspect report that she didn't really feel like she could invest in. And she was like, Well, I'm gonna take your advice this time. She's like, I didn't take your advice this last time. I said, Yeah, yeah, I was save you some money. Uh, but yeah, that's the number one thing. Just getting acclimated to getting out as a realtor and and making sure that you're walking through them. And I know you do this with your clients a lot and you're you're presenting them with, hey, this may come up in the inspection report. And that's another thing that I preach to the to the realtors is that, hey, don't assume that everything's gonna go perfect with this home inspection. Mentally prepare your client. If you're dealing with your son or buying a house that's built in the 50s, hey, we may come back with some things like lead-based paint or asbestos or these things. I just literally finished up a contract or finished up an inspection today, and they were buying a house that was built in the 50s, and the the realtor had already prepared them. He's like, just be prepared. There may be some systems in the home that are antiquated or, you know, not up to kind of modern code. So as I was reviewing things with them and I was telling them, yeah, we did find lead-based paint. Yes, we did find asbestos. Well, hey, our realtor already kind of warned us that we might find these things, and it totally took the whole air out of the, oh my God, we've got asbestos. Oh my god, what have we got? You know, so you know, mentally preparing them for those type of things, uh, it's very helpful in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah, I think um I hear educating. You know, it's like the we make better decisions when we're educated. We, you know, and and I think that's part of the whole process is education. Yes. And so from the very beginning, how are we educating the buyer to understand what they're buying, what they're you know, considering so that they make that informed decision. Right. Um, you're the big part of like I tell people when they sit down and they're signing that big stack of paper at closing, that they're confident I'm buying something that I really want. It's a good house. The inspection's a key part of that. Yes, it is. It's the knowledge of what what am I buying? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Well, you wouldn't go out and spend like say if you're gonna buy a used car, you know, if you were gonna spend, I don't know, say if I was gonna go out and get a new Mercedes or whatever. I'm buying it off the lot, and yeah, you know, they've got their 100-point checkpoint checklist or whatever. But probably if I've got a good mechanic, I'm probably gonna run it by him and say, hey, uh, do a little run through with this. What do you think? What systems are failing? Is the transmission gonna hold up or whatever? You know, you can't predict failure on anything, but uh yeah, you I take it to a mechanic, and we're kind of like the mechanics of the home industry. You know, it's like, okay, tell me what's wrong with it, tell me how much it's gonna cost to get it fixed or whatever. Uh so that I mean, that's part of my job that I enjoy doing. Um, just really educating buyers on systems and how things work. Because again, a lot of clients come in, or a lot of people buying homes just assume that the house kind of takes care of itself, and that's just not true. No.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

For sure. Well, uh, there's thing about this as you were talking that um people looking to buy a house in that old house you mentioned, um the the saying is they don't make them like they used to. What do you think about that saying? Do they make them like they used to? What's you know, that 1920s house versus the one built in 2020?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Is it well materials are much better, quality of the materials are much better, safer. All the systems are safer. Uh, in my opinion, I think in older neighborhoods, like a lot of the stuff that is here in old Nashville, uh, I think there was a different level of c concern for quality and craftsmanship that is not existent in this modern era. I think there are builders and the the big companies come in and they're wanting to put these homes up so quick, get them up, get them sold, let's move on to the next slot and spot. So I think, in my opinion, yes, there is some truth to the older homes are better built. Now, the quality of the materials, some in some instances, yes, some of the old wood, I've heard from builders and contractors that, yeah, some of the old wood is a little bit better, but most 99.9% of the other materials that we're using nowadays are much better, more efficient, more energy efficient, or just better quality. But again, it's all about the construction practices. Uh, it's unfortunate that we need home inspectors out there now, and that's a big probably the big reason why the home inspection industry is taken off, is because of the quality of the construction these days. Um, I can't tell you how many times, you know, people just assume that they don't need an inspection on a new home, and then all of a sudden that one-year warranty runs out, and they've like, well, we didn't get an inspection on it at first because we didn't feel like we needed it, because it's a brand new home. Well, yeah, it's a brand new home with all new things, but how was it installed? How was it crafted when they built it? And then when we come in and do those one-year warranty inspections, and they realize I'm giving them a 30-page list of these are the things that weren't done on that initial construction that you, you know, that they neglected to do or whatever, uh, it's it's shocking to people. So uh yeah, I think homes were built, and again, times are much different now. Um, you know, when people got people were building homes in the 60s and 70s, you probably knew the guy, maybe gone to church with him. Uh, there was a little bit more accountability, you know. If Bill, the builder that you grew up with, played baseball with or whatever, is coming out there to build your house, you had a pretty good understanding that he had a good reputation because, you know, when small towns like Antioch used to be or Nashville used to be, he knew everybody and he knew who was a good builder, who wasn't. And, you know, but now you don't even know who's building your homes. I mean, you got you got the name of the the big builder or the big contractor, but the people who are building it, they may be here for a week or a month, and then they're on to the next city or town or whatever building stuff. So uh I think that's probably the the caveat. Materials are better, construction practices probably not so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

So potentially they could be better. You get a quality builder with the quality materials, you can really build a good house.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

And there are some really there's some handful of great builders out here, and most of them are local. I I I would say, yeah, I would say most of the local builders that are still building are pretty good guys. But yeah, a lot of these big corporate uh entities it's hit or miss most of the time, in my opinion, in my experiences.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

And so when you do the home inspection, I I always enjoy, like I said, sitting there. So the way Reggie operates at the end of the inspector, we try to get the buyer there to go through, to see the pictures, to walk to spots if we need to. And then afterwards, we get a full blown-out report with narratives and very detailed. And I always tell people it's you know, we're gonna at that point kind of talk with the seller, see what needs to be addressed and and work through all of that. But it's also a good checklist. Like it's a very good thing to now, you know, because you know the age of your air conditioning units, you know, manufacturers of different things, and and really always tell them to visit that at least once a year. You know, when it comes time, if there's room at the end of your honeydew list to add a few things, yeah, go to that inspection report and say, all right, Reggie said this was an area that we need to kind of just be watching and and watch it and fix it.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

I have, and I and on that note, I can't tell you how many clients that I've done home inspections for five, ten years later will call me and say, Hey, you brought this up in our inspection report. It's about that time for us to whatever, change out this system or that system. Who do you recommend? Or what do you think? Do you think you need to come back out here and check that? We had it addressed, you know, when you pointed it out to us in the inspection, but we haven't been under our crawl space in years. We feel like maybe there's something going on underneath. So yeah, it's very educational for my cra for our clients. And yeah, it informs them about what's going on in the house. You know, if you got systems, especially, you know, systems aren't cheap to replace, you know. You're you used to be able to replace a water heater for 600 bucks. Now it's double that, triple that, potentially. So you want to know how it's performing. You want to know what you need to do to maintain it. Uh so yeah, it becomes a tool that you can use. And again, if you have to refer to it, you know, they'd be calling a H back contractor. What's the age of your unit? Well, you can go back to that report and say, hey, it was manufactured in such and such date, such and such time. You know, what kind of system is it? Is it gas? Is it electric? It says right here, it's gas or electric. So yeah, there's a you can get a lot, you can use that report for a lot more than just negotiating. You can absolutely use it for uh just kind of maintenance maintenance of your house, knowing how the systems are working and what you have in the home, uh, all those type of things, where your shutoff valves are. Yeah, I had a situation where a girl was flustered, something had happened, she couldn't figure out where her shutoff valve was. And I was like, Did you look, where's your report at? She's like, I don't have it, I don't have it. So I literally had to get on my computer and look up her report. And I was like, okay, go downstairs to your basement. This is where it's at. And she she's like, Oh, yeah, I remember now. But it was uh yeah, it's it's it's interesting. But yeah, we get calls back, call calls back all the time, uh people thinking us about, hey, I'm glad I saved that report because it helped me in this certain situation or other. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

So I think of all the different needs for an a report, definitely when you're buying a home. Um, but let's maybe think about when you're selling a home. Oh, yeah. Is that a time that you would say, and maybe uh what percentage of your inspections are that? Hey, we're thinking about selling our house. We want to do a pre-inspection to kind of get ahead of that. What are your thoughts on the other?

SPEAKER_00 19:59

That's that's the pre-inspections are trending upward. Uh I would say maybe a fifth of my inspections these days are actually pre-listing inspections. As a matter of fact, I've got three on my schedule for next week that are pre-listing inspections. So people are they would don't want to be surprised. And that's part of the whole thing. You know, you don't want to assume that your house is perfect and all of a sudden some seller or buyer is coming back with, hey, right, my inspector finds surprise. All right. So yeah, they spend that three or four hundred bucks and get all this information, start preparing prior to putting the house up for listing. That way, when they get somebody to come in there and put a contract on it, they can feel confident that, hey, we've addressed most of the major issues going on in this house. We feel comfortable putting it up for sale, and we know for the most part, we're aware of pretty much everything that could be deficient or detrimental to the to the potential sale of this house.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Yeah, I think I think it's key. Market drives that to a certain degree. I can say as a real estate agent, I mean, 2021, it didn't matter if your house was falling down, somebody was going to buy it. So, but today it's different. I mean, because I do find buyers, they do an inspection, and it doesn't take much for them to say I'm gone, because they feel like the market's such they can go find another house. This one's not, and so it doesn't take as much for them to say, This is not good, and I want out of it. Andor they, if it's more of a buyer's market, they're gonna try to negotiate hard from a buyer's standpoint. So it can help you actually save you money uh going ahead and doing those things and getting those things fixed.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

That way, just the report is gonna come back a whole lot cleaner, whole lot cleaner, and there's not gonna be as much stress with the negotiation process because again, uh you can as a buyer or a seller, you can use that inspection report as a tool to say, Hey, we know that there's been problems here, we've got them addressed, we've got these contractors, we've already dealt with those things. So at this point, you know, you may see something, but it's already been addressed, or we've already got contracts for this to take to to be handled or whatever it is. So Uh yeah, it's very helpful. But yeah, like I say, it is trending that way. I used to never do those, but now, like I say, probably one in five uh re inspections that I do are uh pre-listing inspections.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

And you never the homeowners just don't go in the crawl space. So they don't go. You mentioned you just came out of a 140-degree attic. I know I'm not going up there. So those are places that honestly, I think a lot of times we find the big items.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Yes, uh crawl spaces kill deals for sure.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

So you get on under there, get them taken care of so that you don't come off the market, home inspection, then you're back on the market, then the next buyer wants to know what in the world was wrong with it, and then you're having to deal with it again, and it will affect you know the the really the final value of your property to a to a buyer. So so the I think a pre-inspection on you know, certain homes definitely it's worth that time to get up underneath. Um let's talk about crawl spaces. That's the crawl space killers, which you say I mean it it is. There's so much under there. We're in Davidson County, Nashville, Middle Tennessee. We've got water, we've got you know all sorts of critters and humidity. And humidity. Um, what's common, I guess, trends that you see inside a crawl space that you say, okay, here is a couple things to really consider so that these issues don't happen. First of all, the issues, and then let's let's see some remedies.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Well, symptomatics is always the gutters and the grade. That's I I appreach that more than anything that I've talked about in any other form of my inspection career is please. This, I mean, the the minimal amount of getting again, nobody wants to get on ladders and clean gutters, but I mean, most guys don't charge you but a hundred bucks to go out and clean your gutters. So that little hundred bucks you could spend once or twice a year will save you thousands of dollars over the lifetime of your house. I promise you that. Uh, but yeah, it happens. I mean, literally this morning, perfect house, beautiful home. The people wanted it. It was, you know, we went through and did the inspection, didn't find but a few handfuls of issues throughout the exterior and the interior of the house. And I said to the guy that I was training, I said, well, this is where we're gonna either kill the deal or why not underneath this crawl space. And sure enough, we got underneath that crawl space. And literally, once we pop that door open, you see that the there's already fungus growing on the wood, fungus growing around all the HVAC ducts. It's like, okay, here we go. We're gonna have to come back out of here and tell somebody some bad news. Uh, but again, it comes back to how are you as a real estate agent? Good agents are gonna say, hey, it's a problem, but guess what? We can negotiate it and fix it. Every problem has a solution. Uh, but yeah, crawl spaces, you get, and of course, we have a lot of critters uh here in Middle Tennessee. Got a lot of lush forest and land around a lot of these homes that are being built, some of them being built on old farmland. So you're not you're not running out the mice, you're not running out the skunks, you're not running out the squirrels or another pests that get underneath your house. Now, you can do a lot to protect yourself from that, you know, ideally putting up chicken wire around your HVAC units, making sure that all your crawl space vents are working properly, none of the screens and stuff are broken, where critters use them to get in and out. Uh, but yeah, most of the time, crawl spaces are probably the thing that kills deals. And most of the time, it's because people have a preconceived notion about mold or environmental contamination. The M-word, and we can't even say that as home inspectors, we can't even call it mold, even if we know it is mold. But uh that's probably the number one thing, in my opinion, that people will just run from. It's like, okay, I'm not buying a house with mold. But it's, you know, dime a dozen, probably 75% of the houses that we get in have some form of microbial growth on them somewhere in the house. It can be treated, it can be dealt with. Uh, we do testing, obviously. Uh, but yeah, that's probably the biggest thing. And then it's not just from the moisture from the ground. A lot of times it's neglected plumbing leaks, you know. If you got a toilet that's rocking and it's been rocking for five years, well, you know what? There's gonna be something going on. There's gonna be something going on underneath there. That subfloor is probably gonna be rotted out. Uh or you could have a leak that you don't even not even aware of. You know, there could be a, I mean, I've gotten under many a home and there's just water shooting everywhere, and it's like nobody realized that your water bill was probably two or three times what it should be, and you know, you get the whole floor covered with water and mold. So, yeah, that's probably the biggest thing, you know. And again, critters, they get underneath houses and can cause major damage, you know, tearing insulation up, eating on wires, those type of things. So uh yeah, the the unseen stuff that people just, you know, nobody wants to get under a crawl space. It's not a nice place. It's not I don't I don't recommend it, but you need to have somebody get under it for you at some point and just kind of make sure that, hey, everything's okay. Uh, but yeah, crawl spaces are probably the biggest deal killers of of everything that I do.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Yeah, I think of the movie Elf um when Will Farrell ran across that. Um and uh what was it? Was it uh wasn't a raccoon? Was it a raccoon?

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yeah, I think it was. And they gave him a big hug.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

I'm guessing if you ever done that and it got under a crawl space, I'm sure you've seen animals. Uh anything just kind of jump up on you, you didn't expect.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Oh man, yeah, all the time. Uh that's why I carried my machete. There you go. I mean, probably the worst experience, but probably the scariest experience that I ever had was uh this brand new construction house out in Hendersonville. And it was one of those crawl spaces that was kind of weird because you had the trunk line that went straight down the center of the house, so there was no way to make a quick escape. You had to go all the way down one end of the house to go around to the front of the house. So the HVAC unit wasn't working on the brand new house. So I was like, oh, this is this weird. Why is the HVAC not working? So I go around and I'm hearing inside the ductwork, it's flapping. I'm saying, well, what's going on with the ductwork? And you know, I'm just thinking that maybe that something's disconnected in the inside where maybe it's just trying to work, not realizing that by the time I got all the way around the crawl the crawl space to the front of the house, well, here comes a big old beaver out of the ductwork. And he was flapping his tails, warning me to probably don't need to come around this side of the crawl space, my friend. So he's basically pretty mad at me at this point because I'm when he I hear him flapping, I'm flap hitting the thing back, trying to figure out what's going on in there. He wasn't happy about that. And he literally, I mean, he came on me quick, and thank God there was some scrap wood, like a big long two by four. It was in the rock, and I could I couldn't turn around. I was basically having to back my way out, trying to hit him. I mean, it is one of those crawls, and it's like a three three blocker, too. So wow. I thought for sure that I was probably not gonna make it out of that crawl space uh without taking some some injury, but uh managed to fight him off. And I think just having that wood there probably entertained him a little bit, I guess, because beavers are attracted to wood. So he's probably like, oh, okay, I'll eat on this piece of wood instead of attacking this guy. But yeah, and then uh I actually, well, I can tell I've got so many stories as far as critters under crawl spaces, but uh probably the other one's literally right around the corner from from where we're sitting on this porch, um, crawling under a crawl space uh to get again get to the other side, and I felt something under my stomach, and I thought it was a snake. But by the time I got under the trunk line and I looked, and there was a mama skunk waiting down in the corner with her tail up, ready to spray me. It was actually her babies were trying to follow her underneath, and I'm I'm sitting there, I see the skunk, and I feel something underneath my stomach. So I'm like, oh crap, I mean I'm about to get bit by a snake and sprayed by a skunk. But it was actually the babies trying to get over there to mama, and she wasn't having it. By the time I lifted up the vapor barrier and saw that it was the babies, and by that time she'd done sprayed, it hit the vapor barrier and get dripped on me. And basically I had to fortunately I had an extra pair of pants in my car, but uh yeah, I got sprayed by a skunk under her house, and like that's literally not even a mile from this house when that happened. So I I I get a little bit weak when I come down this road.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Man, that's why I've got my real estate license and my home inspector's license. That's that's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. All right, some real quick kind of homeownership. Let's talk to the homeowner because one of the things I'd love for somebody to get out of this talk today is like, okay, I don't, you know, USS, there's a lot of foundation companies that have made a lot of money out of water, you know, and things like that. So some def not some maintenance items, checklist of things. Do this every, you know, take care of these things. It's gonna one, keep your house ready when you get ready to sell it, also keep you from having to spend a lot of money on major problems. What are maybe three, four or five things that you can think of? Okay, annually do these things.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

It's critical to the gutters, uh, gutters, gutters, gutters, gutters, drainage, just making sure that your downspouts are kind of extended away from your house. Um, I know as uh I like to do it, and we all love to have our flower beds, but being real cautious about how many flower beds that you have and putting up the retainer uh fixtures around your mulch beds because that tends to trap water. Um, yeah, that's that's I mean, those are really the two biggest things as far as structural because um gutters and just not having things graded out, go around, walk around your house, look for low spots uh where the dirt or the grade is sloping back towards the house. Typically you'll be able to see indicators of that, especially if you have a masonry foundation, because you'll see like little green uh streaks or green algae build up around the foundation. You know that's the area uh where water's kind of getting trapped, uh, extending your uh HVAC unit. If you have a split unit, most of the time those pipes come off, making sure those are in good connections and water's draining away. Um, and then probably the other thing is just caulking. Go to Home Depot, you know, maybe in the fall, get some caulk, get around the high exterior of your house, caulk up cracks in concrete, cracks in around windows or or doors or entryways. Uh, those are the things that typically are going to contribute to structural foundational issues that can be solved by, you know, five bucks worth of you know, caulking, yeah, or just getting some dirt and moving it in a certain direction, or again, getting somebody up there to clean those gutters out. Um it's just very simple, not by not expensive, but a lot of times we get too so enamored with just the superficial stuff that we don't even think about the maintenance on gutters or grades or trimming trees back away from your house. I know a lot of people in Nashville that I wrote reports for over the years that lived in East Nashville, I said recommended getting those trees trimmed off of your electrical lines. Yeah. They were regretting that they didn't get those trees trimmed off their electrical lines. Did they call you and say it was? They didn't. Well, I actually talked to what well, I was actually because my girlfriend lives in Dawson. She don't have her trees trimmed. But there was a lady that we were in, I guess, Kroger or Publix or somewhere, and she said, Hey, you did my inspection for me. And guess what? You know what? You told me to trim those trees back, and guess what? The trees fell on my house and I don't have power, so we're up here trying to get out. I was like, Yeah, yeah, that's the reason I put that in the report. Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

But uh Yeah, I would say I hear you say that a good investment as a homeowner is a rain suit. So when it rains and it's rained a lot and real hard, go outside, see where the water's going. Yeah. You know, check are we flowing over the gutters? Is it coming out of the gutters? Then where is it going? Is it going away from the house? I mean, I kind of live on a my lot kind of ebbs and flows in different ways. That when it rains hard, I mean, rivers form. Yeah, they do that river go, and and just to make sure, because that's what gets under the foundation, gets in the crawl space that causes the big, bigger issues, and water is not good.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

And this is, and of course, we live in an area where we've got a lot of calcium and lime deposits in our in our ground, and a lot of the dirt is really not dirt, it's clay. So that stuff tends to seize up when it's hot, like now, when it's you know 100 degrees outside, it gets hard as concrete, and then when it rains, it gets like clay and it gets really soft. So your house is under a lot of stress all of the time when it and especially in the summertime when it gets 100 degrees for two or three weeks, and then you get a whole week of rain. So that house is just kind of moving back and forth, back and forth. So, yeah, getting out and looking around the house, if you start to see a small crack in your brick or masonry, may not be a big deal, but stay on top of it. Understand that, hey, my house is moving. I've got to do some maintenance, I've got to make sure that these gutters are clean, I've got to make sure water's staying away. I can't be putting trees too close to the house because they're gonna have tree roots potentially growing into my foundation and all those type of things. Uh, you save yourself a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of, you know, and your investment. Um, yeah, I again, this is a simple thing. Uh gutters, man. Gutters and grain and water. Uh, that's the number one killer of houses for sure.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

I think so. If if you own a home and you're not thinking about selling it, but yet you're not wanting to crawl space and you want to have a checklist. I mean, I always think of a home inspection in association with buying or selling a home. But I would say if you're like, okay, I just kind of want that knowledge for a few hundred dollars, Reggie can come out and give you a good lookover and kind of tell you, you know, what to do.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Yeah, preventative maintenance. Yeah, preventative maintenance is always key. I mean, again, when you go to the doctor, he's always trying to tell you, hey, if you don't want to have uh diabetes or whatever, well, Troy, you may not want to drink two Mountain Dews every meal. You might want to back it off with some water or whatever. Same thing. You know, hey, if you want to keep this foundation intact, well, let's get these gutters extended out. Let's do this, that, or the other. So, yeah, there's all kinds of things that we can do as home inspectors is to give people advice on preventive maintenance. Checking, you know, we get, and probably other things I see a lot of people will have their club, their cabinets, especially under sink counters, just cluttered with stuff. And you may never know that you've got a leak underneath that sink until you got to pull it out and you know, get ready to sell your house or do whatever, and all of a sudden your whole kitchen floor is rotted out, or checking your connections for your uh refrigerator. That's another thing. So I found that today. Right behind the refrigerator, there was a big wet spot on the floor. I'm like, yeah, that water line's probably leaking. So hoses and stuff are meant to last only period for a period of time. You got a washing machine, you know, change the uh well, first and foremost, if you got a washing machine, use berated steel hoses. Don't use plastic or the rubber stuff. But check those things out again. I can't tell you how many times I go into laundry rooms or kitchens, and to as a home inspector, it's obvious to me, but it's like people are just oblivious to the things that are going on in their home. You may open up that washing machine every single day and you don't realize that that valve is leaking, it's leaking down the wall in the back of the dryer and washing machine, and you got mold growing on the walls and the subfloor is all rotted out. And you just don't be oblivious to your house, you know. You know, pay attention. You know, if you're again, we don't have a check engine light for your house like you do your car, but act like you do. You know, so just do some things. Like I say, just look at your hoses, look at, you know, when you turn, when you're out watering your grass, is that faucet dripping, or do you hear water running through the wall? Just little stuff like that. Just be a being aware. I think a lot of times people aren't aware what's going on in their houses. I think that's that's probably the biggest thing I see. And then when they get a report from me, it's like, I had no idea. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Yeah, well.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

And you didn't, and you didn't, yeah. But I'm bringing it to your attention.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Now it's gonna cost you. So, man, so much there, Reggie. And I I mean, honestly, as a friend and uh someone we worked together for years, it's it's just a pleasure to again. I um I know I hope you don't retire before I do because to find somebody else that that can do and deliver and just be as informative as you are, um, it's just such a plus. I know my buyers, as they see this, they're gonna echo that same thing. And um, so it's just been a pleasure just to kind of work alongside of you and the professionalism. As well, man. Um, it just it just adds so much value to what we all do, and so I I appreciate that. Um, we're gonna put Reggie's information in the show notes. Wherever you watch this, you should be able to get a hold of him and order your inspection if you are um definitely concerned um after watching this video, he can come out and play with the skunks in your crawl space and uh have all the fun for you. But um then again, Reggie, thank you so much for doing this with me.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

Brother Troy, man, I love you, brother. It's always good to sit down and chat with you. Uh yeah, I mean, we've been doing this a long time, and I can say this. Um it as far as real estate agents and people that that really enjoy their craft, I know that you do that, and it's evident in the people that you that you bring to me to to do inspections for. Uh but yeah, this being always being on the front end of educating your clients, educating buyers. Um, that's the number one thing we can do as real estate professionals, whether it be on your side or being an agent or on my side as an inspector. Uh we want to educate the public. We don't, I don't enjoy giving people bad inspections or giving people bad reports or whatever. Uh, but it is it's necessary. I mean, again, yeah, this is one of the biggest investments that they're gonna make in their lifetime outside of their retirement or maybe their children's college fund or something like that. So we have to treat it with a certain level of seriousness and and respect for their money and time and their investment in it. So uh I know that you're one one of the people who really take that seriously as part of your job responsibility, and so do I. And I think that's why we kind of get along and jive together uh over the years, and you know, because we're both working for the same thing, working to make sure that your clients have the best experience they can possibly have. And you know, once they're in that house, that they're not calling me or you back saying, Hey, uh this house that I bought, man, it's a lemon. Yeah, you know, we're gonna try to give them as much information as possible to to make an educated decision uh how to proceed. So uh I appreciate your your your faith in me to do the best the best job for your clients and and presenting that to them. And uh hopefully we can have a few more years together, man. Sounds good. Appreciate you. Yes, sir.