Effects of the drought

As the drought continues in the Kansas City area, here's a home owner's maintenance tip for you. Water your house's foundation. That's right. It probably won't grow at all, but watering the dirt against the foundation might help keep cracks from forming and water from seeping into your basement. Assuming it ever rains.

How much should you water? That's a tough one to answer. It's like tightening a plastic fastener. The instructions always say "Don't overtighten". In other words, when it breaks, then you know that you've overtightened it. When watering the ground around your foundation, you want the soil to be damp. Not wet. Not soaked. Damp.

Keeping the soil around your foundation damp keeps it from drying out and moving away from your foundation. If the soil shrinks away from the concrete, it opens up a channel between the earth and the concrete. And when we finally do get some rain, guess where the water will go - straight down that new opening between the dirt and concrete and, perhaps, into your basement. Damp soil will instead stay up against the concrete and will then absorb the eventual rain water as it did before the drought.

Keeping the soil damp around your foundation also helps avoid the "elevator" effect of the soil. When the soil is very dry, it compacts, which can cause the house to settle. Dry soil also shrinks and gets lower on your foundation, causing a negative slope that will route future rain water towards the house. Then rain can make the soil swell pushing against your foundation. That shifting, or heaving, up and down puts stress on the concrete and can cause cracks to form.

So, the grass may be dormant or burned up. The flowers may have already wilted. But remember to water the ground around your foundation. A rule of thumb is that if the plants against your house are watered, then the foundation should be fine.

Then, just pray for rain.

Whole house inspections, condo inspections, radon testing, mold testing and more, we do it all for you. Call or E-mail today to schedule your Complete Home Inspection, 913-268-0222, www.completehomeinspectionkc.com.

Nice to hear

Our customer wasn't able to attend her Kansas City home inspection so she asked a friend, Charley, to be there for her. He's in the home remodeling business and would be the one doing any fix-up work for her on the house. A few days after her inspection, Charley called and left this message:

"I went through the report you sent to your client. I'm calling just to tell you that I'm very impressed with your work. You're very thorough, not only when I was there, but looking through this report. Like I said, I'm just super impressed with your detail, with your knowledge and your thoroughness. We don't always hear that from people that are in the trade, as I am. I just thought I'd pass that on to you. Good job."

Whole house inspections, condo inspections, radon testing, mold testing, and more, we do it all for you. And we apparently do it very thoroughly, too. Call or E-mail today to schedule your Complete Home Inspection, 913-268-0222, http://www.completehomeinspectionkc.com/.

Two more reasons for a Kansas City home inspection

As you wonder if it's really worth it to have a Kansas City home inspection before you buy a new home, consider two things that happened this past week. Both may have been things that you wouldn't notice as you look at the big picture of the house: moving into it, who gets which bedroom, and all of the other things you need to think about. But both could be deadly for you and your family.

1) The seller of the home was a home builder. So you might assume that everything in the home would be fine and that an inspection would be unnecessary. But, during our inspection, we discovered that a natural gas line had a valve on it that is designed to be used with LP gas instead. That's very dangerous. And it's probably not something you would notice yourself. Additionally, that same natural gas line did not have a "trap" installed to allow the particulates in the gas flow to safely settle out. Instead, the pipeline went directly into the gas appliance, taking the impurities along with it.

2) Another home included a bedroom door with the handle installed incorrectly. The lock on the handle was on the hallway side of the door, not inside the bedroom. Instead of being able to lock people OUT of your bedroom, people could lock you IN your bedroom. That could be tragic in the event of a fire. Again, it's something that you probably wouldn't notice on your own.

It really pays off to have a certified professional do your Kansas City home inspection. Whole house inspections, condo inspections, radon testing, mold testing, and more, we do it all for you. Call or E-mail today to schedule your Complete Home Inspection, 913-268-0222, http://www.completehomeinspectionkc.com/.

Your Kansas City home inspection

Sometimes, in today's litigious society, it can become frustrating the way businesses always seem to cover their rears when it comes to disclaimers and fine print in contracts. For instance, we talk about how your Kansas City home inspection lets you know the condition of the property "at the time of the inspection". But that only makes sense. We can't predict what might happen to the property in the future. We can only see what it's like now, and perhaps some evidence of what happened to it in the past. Clients are amazed when we uncover evidence, in an attic for example, that the house had had a fire at some point in the past.

We also talk about not being able to inspect certain aspects of the property because we couldn't get to them. We can't remove drywall to check behind it, for instance. One home seller had moved most everything from the house into the garage, making the garage impossible to completely inspect. So, while it may sound like some legal double-talk, we're simply telling you that what we can see, what we can get to, and what we can investigate, will be completely inspected. But sometimes, we run into this - This kitchen sink drain pipe showed evidence of a leak:















But the sink above it, made it impossible to completely investigate.















No, we don't do dishes.

Whole house inspections, condo inspections, radon testing, mold testing, and more, we do it all for you. Call or E-mail today to schedule your Complete Home Inspection, 913-268-0222, www.completehomeinspectionkc.com.

Yes, even a brand new house

It's easy, with a newly constructed house, to think that there's no reason to have Complete Home Inspection inspect it for you. Think again.

Here's the attic in a new house we inspected recently -

No insulation at all. Now, is that something you would check as soon as you move into your new home?

Probably not. Instead, you'd be wondering why it cost so much to cool and heat your new place.

In another new construction, we couldn't get the kitchen sink spray hose to extend from its resting place. We found that the dishwasher's drain hose and the spray hose were tangled up under the sink. Further, the dishwasher was susceptible to backflow from the sink's garbage disposal because of the way its drainage hose had been placed. Again, you don't usually move into a brand new house and immediately check under the kitchen sink. Why not have Complete Home Inspection do that for you?

Yes, your builder's warranty covers things. Yes, you have a year to make a list of what needs to be repaired. Getting a Kansas City home inspection from Complete Home Inspection BEFORE you move in gets you a jump start on that list and allows you to get many of those things fixed before you take occupancy.

Whole house inspections, condo inspections, new construction inspections, radon testing, mold testing, and more, we do it all for you. Call or E-mail today to schedule your Complete Home Inspection, 913-268-0222, www.completehomeinspectionkc.com.

There must be a reason

One of the most gratifying things over the last twenty years of Kansas City home inspections is having real estate professionals hire us for their children's Kansas City home inspections. Just in the last week or so, two different realtors have called to schedule an inspection on a home their son or daughter was buying. These realtors had each seen a Complete Home Inspection in the past, had seen how we treat our customers, and had read our inspection reports. So, they knew where to turn to make sure that their children would be taken care of. It means a lot to get that kind of recognition and trust from real estate professionals.

Whole house inspections, condo inspections, radon testing, mold testing, and more, we do it all for you. And for the children of realtors. Call or E-mail today to schedule your Kansas City home inspection from Complete Home Inspection, 913-268-0222, www.completehomeinspectionkc.com.

Customer comments about a Kansas City home inspection

Here's an unedited comment from someone who recently hired Complete Home Inspection to do a Kansas City home inspection for him:

"Thank you so much for your Excellent Inspection Report! I was impressed and happily elated with all your photos, comments, recommendations and thoroughness in your coverage of priority details you have now provided for me. I can only say "A Professional Job~Very Well Done" to my complete satisfaction! I only wish that I could have met you {-in person-} today when I stopped by on my school bus route:(
Maybe someday..? I promise to share this experience with your results to others who may ask me for a very well qualified Home Inspection Service referral.

PS: I especially appreciated the timeliness of your completed report and emailed by days end (within so few minutes of my sights scheduled visit)."

How can we serve you? Whole house inspections, condo inspections, radon testing, mold testing, and more, we do it all for you. Call or E-mail today to schedule your Complete Home Inspection, 913-268-0222, www.completehomeinspectionkc.com.