10 Easy Ways to Save Money & Energy in Your Home

  According to  InterNACHI's Home Inspection Standards of Practice , home inspectors are required to inspect the gutters and downspouts as part of the roof portion of the home inspection.   www.HomeBossInspection.com www.FLBoss.com Some important factors a home inspector should consider include: that the guttering system is adequately sized to prevent runoff; that the gutters are free of rust, cracks and holes in order to prevent leaking; and that the downspouts divert water 4 to 6 feet away from the home's foundation.             A few inches of rain falling on the roof of a house can produce several thousand gallons of water runoff. This runoff must be channeled away from the home's foundation. Otherwise, the excess water can quickly saturate the soil surrounding the building and wick through the foundation to the interior. (See Figure 1 below.) Once inside, this moisture can lead to a variety of problems, incl...

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, at InterNACHI, we’d like you to take measures to keep your garage free from fire. Fortunately, there are ways this can be done, some of which are described below. Secondly, garage fires do happen, and we’d like you to make sure that a fire cannot not easily spread to the rest of your house. While you can perform many of the recommendations in this article yourself, it is a good idea to hire an InterNACHI inspector to make sure your home is safe from a garage fire. www.HomeBossInspection.com   www.FLBOSS.com   Why do many garages pose a fire hazard? Where are you most likely to do any welding, or any work on your car? These activities require working with all sorts of flammable materials.  Water heaters and boilers are usually stored in garages, and they can create sparks that may ignite fumes or fluids. Car batteries, too, will spark under certain conditions.  Oil and gasoline ...

Homeowners have more to worry about than being ripped off by shady contractors in this lagging economy, but such a climate brings desperation -- and with it, sadly, fraud. Of course, the majority of tradesmen are generally honest professionals, but there is a large number of unscrupulous contractors who will fix items that don’t need fixing, or grossly overcharge you for services or parts. Worse, there are plenty of con artists posing as tradesmen who will simply take your money and run. Inspectors are often the first ones to uncover such fraud, so they too need to be familiar with its common forms in order to best serve their clients.  www.HomeBossInspection.com www.FLBoss.com Some common home repair scams include: roof work. Con artists are known to travel from state to state following natural disasters and looking for victims of storms. Beware of people who suddenly arrive in your neighborhood, offering to fix your roof at a discount. Also, don’t trust a roof...

Purchasing foreclosed homes in desirable areas at below-market values can be a sound investment strategy. Appreciation on their original prices may be tax-free.  Buying foreclosed rental properties can provide positive cash flow, as well as valuable tax deductions. On the other hand, buying a foreclosure involves homework, patience, and a certain amount of luck. For those wishing to get a bargain house through the foreclosure process, it’s best to learn the basics. www.HomeBossInspection.com Four Ways to Buy a Foreclosed Home A  presale  is when the prospective buyer negotiates with the current owner before the house is foreclosed upon. Presale discounts can be considerable, but communicating and reasoning with the owner isn’t always easy; they might have legal problems, lost their phone service or electricity, or greet you with suspicion, having already been hounded and threatened by creditors. And after time and energy have been invested, the de...

Building orientation is the practice of facing a building so as to maximize certain aspects of its surroundings, such as street appeal, to capture a scenic view, for drainage considerations, etc. With rising energy costs, it’s becoming increasingly important for builders to orient buildings to capitalize on the Sun’s free energy. For developers and builders,  orienting a new home to take advantage of the warmth of the Sun will increase the home's appeal and marketability.  For homeowners, it will increase their indoor comfort and reduce their energy bills.    Thus, building orientation, along with daylighting and thermal mass, are crucial considerations of passive solar construction that can be incorporated into virtually any new home design.  InterNACHI inspectors who consult with new homeowners can pass along this valuable information to help their clients reap long-term energy benefits and savings. www.HomeBossInspection.com   Facts and Figure...

Once you’ve made the decision to move your home office into a commercial space (and have already secured a location – see our other article on  Renting Versus Buying ), you’ll need to make a to-do and to-buy list in order to make your new office functional, with little lost time for productivity.  It will take two weeks to a month for packing and planning before you’re ready to move into your new space and open your doors for business.  To help ease that transition, consider the following checklist:  www.HomeBossInspection.com Utilities :   Make sure the power is turned on before you move in.  Commercial accounts may take more lead-time for service providers to get you up and running.    These may include: Phones:     Many small businesses are transitioning from landlines to exclusively cell phones for their obvious portability, but you may want to maintain a no-frills landline to make other local calls in orde...

Roughly 57 million American homeowners belong to homeowners associations (HOAs), which are elected bodies that govern the lifestyle and architectural choices of their members. Largely unregulated by state and federal laws, HOAs are essentially autonomous "mini-governments" that sometimes exert enough power to bully their residents into foreclosure. Inspectors may want to arm themselves with knowledge concerning the struggles of their clients who live under HOAs. When Chicagoan Wally Kuchlewski, a 67-year-old machinist, returned to his condominium, he found all of his possessions on the street. His HOA had foreclosed on his home in response to $4,000 in unpaid dues -- that had drastically risen from $640 -- to cover the HOA’s attorney’s fees. The distraught Kuchlewski gunned down the secretary of the condominium board, killing her and wounding a bystander. Although extreme, Kuchlewski’s actions nevertheless demonstrate the escalating opposition to the unchecked authority...

www.HomeBossInspection.com Roofs play a key role in protecting building occupants and interiors from outside weather conditions, primarily moisture. The roof, insulation and ventilation must all work together  to keep the building free of moisture. Roofs also provide protection from the sun. In fact, if designed correctly, roof overhangs can protect the building's exterior walls from moisture and sun. The concerns regarding moisture, standing water, durability and appearance are different, reflected in the choices of roofing materials. Maintaining Your Roof    Homeowner maintenance includes cleaning the leaves and debris from the roof’s valleys and gutters. Debris in the valleys can cause water to wick under the shingles and cause damage to the interior of the roof. Clogged rain gutters can cause water to flow back under the shingles on the eaves and cause damage, regardless of the roofing material. including composition shingle, wood shake, tile or met...