Ned Harr

Trey Browning wrote:Hey Ned, I found this thread fascinating and exactly what I was looking to read about the process. Thank you for the details and updates. I’m highly considering becoming a home inspector and figured I’d create an account and chat.
As a 33 yr old male, army combat veteran who aspires to be my own boss, make my own schedule, and not drain my time & energy like a 9-5, how would you rate getting into home inspecting? I also have a drone and part 107 license for it if that matters and could tie into the business model.

I really only need to make 2-4k a month on top of my disability to try provide for a future family and I love the idea of starting a small business as a home inspector. I know you said you started off with a firm, and that may need to be my plan starting off getting experience as well.
So just seeing if there’s any updates on your home inspection journey and what you tell people considering getting into it. Thank you!!

Hi Trey, thanks for the questions.

So now it's been two and a half years since I started home inspecting. These days I do typically do one or two home inspections on Saturdays only. Monday through Friday I work as an electrician, a career I started about six months after I got into home inspecting.

I did electrical work once on a Saturday instead of doing home inspections, and on the Monday after it didn't feel like I'd gotten a weekend. I don't have that feeling when I inspect houses on Saturday. So it really is quite relaxed and easy compared to actual trades work.

But I'm not sure I'd recommend home inspecting as a full-time career. I think the people who are successful at it either have spouses whose incomes they partially or mostly rely on, or they have to just work all the time nonstop and home inspecting is basically their life. Or both. Personally, I appreciate it much more as a side hustle and I definitely recommend it as that.

My perspective on it is that the liability and overhead costs (including insurance, marketing, software, and CE--I detailed these in an earlier comment) are high relative to the amount of money you make, and it's a lot of time and driving each day, plus the hours are not actually very flexible: you have to inspect houses when sellers are willing to have strangers in their houses and when buyers are willing to go meet you at a house to review your findings, and also to some degree when realtors are used to home inspectors wanting to see the houses. That usually means somewhere in the 9am-5pm range, and that means you are always driving during the most congested times. (As an electrician I typically work 7am-3pm and I like that a lot more.)

If you are set on starting a home inspecting business, the drone will keep you competitive because most home inspecting companies (around here at least) offer drone-assisted inspections. Camera-drones are very useful for being able to see details of chimneys and roofs that are not otherwise safe or easy to get to. But can you charge enough extra for using them to justify the time and operating costs?

Relatedly, (depending on your location) you'll also want to get licensed to inspect for wood destroying insects, mold, radon, etc. Sewer scoping is another popular add-on service. These add-on services are where home inspecting companies make most of their money because it's hard to sell a basic inspection for more money than the other guy is charging, but upselling from just the basics is (apparently) very effective.

Another thing to consider is your market--the houses for sale in the radius where you would be willing to drive to. How many inspections can you reasonably expect to do in a week based on the number of houses for sale, the number of buyers' agents, etc.?

But I also don't think I'm qualified to advise people on starting their own companies of any kind because I've never done it. Over four decades I've learned that I do much better working for other people and I'm fine with that--I've gotten lucky enough to pretty consistently have excellent bosses. You might be wired differently than me, and/or have a different effect on people than I do. If you are a "start your own company" type then you'll probably do well at whatever you choose, and it's just a matter of finding something you enjoy that makes you enough money.

Good luck!

John C Daley wrote:
- plasterers covering all electric cables or plumbing with no marks on the floor to find them behind a blank wall.
- electrician or plumber punching holes in same wall to find their cables etc, plus a few more to teach the plasterer a lesson.

Definitely have seen the first of those two happen. But when I went back to find my outlets I certainly made as few holes as possible! I want the contractor to hire me on the next job, not see me as a loose cannon.

- electrical switches put in the wrong place, behind open doors, or next to a sink.

That one's gotta be either a planning issue (customer asking for outlets in dumb places) or a code-ignorance question (outlets are required/forbidden in certain places). I will say though, sometimes the customer asks for an outlet, say, on the wall, then halfway through the project, after I have already put a box and run wire to that spot on the wall, they decide they want to put a built-in cabinet there.

- dishwasher slammed into place when installed, crushing electric cable which caused a fire burning the house down.

Tsk tsk. Any time we know an outlet is serving a heavy appliance in a cabinet we sheath it in metal flex to prevent exactly that problem. But also, if a live NM cable got crushed and shorted, why didn't the circuit trip??

- solar collectors on the north side of the house in the northern hemisphere and the south in mine.

Ha, in the neighborhood next to mine there's a house with a south-facing roof slope and a north-facing roof slope. They put a dozen PV panels on the north-facing slope, because the south-facing slope faces the street and they thought it would be ugly!

The easy answer is my "everyday carry" tools in my electrician pouch (shall I list them? Tempting...I'll put the list at the end).

But my sentimental answer is a tool I've had for decades, an egg-beater drill my grandfather gave me. It's quiet, it works great, I can adjust the torque, and it's just so cool--plus it requires no electricity or batteries. Only downside is I need two hands to use it.


This is not mine but mine kinda looks like this.

Okay, here's my list of electrician everyday carries:

Dewalt 20V impact drill w/bit holder & Phillips bit
Klein lineman's pliers
Knipex diagonal cutters
Channellocks (I'm probably gonna switch these out for 9" Knipex equivalent once I come into a $60 windfall)
Amprobe voltage sniffer
Stanley box cutter (the brand of cutter doesn't matter, a fresh blade does)
Klein 11-in-1 screwdriver
Klein long-shaft flathead screwdriver
Magnetic torpedo level
Klein (I think?) electrician's scissors
Ideal wire strippers ("Reflex Super T 45-655" model)
Sharpie markers
Carpenter pencil
Electrical tape (the cheap kind, the fancy "33" kind, and white phase tape which is handy for making impromptu labels)
5/8" spade bit
3/16" SDS bit
5/16" Klein nut driver bit
Klein 25' magnetic tape measure

I rely on these tools constantly and they don't let me down.

One day I might get a small set of insulated screwdrivers but for now I borrow my coworker's if I need them, which is not often.

John Morey wrote:If you could make someone building their first Earthship understand just ONE of these challenges before they started, which would you choose?

Depends who I'm talking to.

Someone with dozens of able-bodied friends who are available and willing to come help out for free and camp out for weeks or months at a time doesn't need my warning about funding as much as someone who doesn't get invited to parties and who could only think of a few people to invite if he or she were to throw one.

Someone planning to build in Arizona doesn't need to be as concerned about humidity as much as someone planning to build in Florida or Washington state.

I wouldn't want a bunch of concrete in my house and I bet most prospective Earthship occupants wouldn't either, but if one of them didn't mind concrete and had a buddy in the concrete business, he or she might even be excited at the prospect of using a lot of it.

I've heard that anyone who wants to build an Earthship should find a tire and pound it full of dirt just once, just as a sanity check, and I think that is good advice. I would recommend the same for framing a reclaimed window, running pipe to a planter, fitting cob around a set of old wine bottles, etc.

Unfortunately, these are all things you've got to do in meat space with your hands. A video game could help people understand the process and the abstract challenges (costs, timeframes, etc.) but if the mission statement is really to give people an idea of what they're up against before they decide to build an Earthship, I think getting out there and really trying things is the only way.

So instead, the potential value I see from a game like this is education, spreading awareness of Earthships, and maybe even better, of the various building techniques and construction science principles that Earthships attempt to tie together--because they can also be decoupled and applied elsewhere, and that is where I think the magic will really happen.

I don't have personal experience with Earthships, but I have experience with conventional construction and I have read as much criticism as I could find about Earthships because I was quite obsessed with them for a while. (The book "Hacking The Earthship" is a great resource and I recommend it!)

As I recall, there are a few issues people consistently battle with when building/living in Earthships and Earthship-inspired homes. Many people with direct Earthship experience will not have experienced these issues, but what I remember learning is that these issues are much more common than the venerable Mr. Reynolds would wish them to be:

- Funding. Part of the Earthship idea is that it's very cheap because it's made out of trash and the labor is mostly free because you just throw big pizza parties and get friends and friendly strangers to come help build the thing using methods that anyone can learn in a few minutes. This attracts people who are not prepared to bankroll the construction of what turns out to be a rather intensive and complicated project. Many Earthships end up as partly-finished construction sites, half-finished dreams.

- Concrete. Earthships are often pumped full of concrete after other methods of filling the tire wall and constructing the floor fail. All that concrete is expensive, and counteracts the advertised environmental and toxicological benefits.

- Humidity. I can't remember why exactly, maybe because the vapor barriers are often not installed correctly, or maybe because of poor air circulation, but I recall learning that Earthships (especially ones not located in the high desert of northern New Mexico) consistently experience humidity issues, often leading to mold.

There might be others that I'm forgetting. Also, I have to imagine that using greywater to flush toilets will shorten the life of the toilet or introduce extra maintenance, since the internal components of toilet tanks are designed to be in contact with municipal water, but I have not learned whether this ends up being the case in reality.

A game that realistically simulates the challenges of Earthship construction and maintenance should include the challenges Earthship builders and occupants typically face.

(BTW, one big takeaway I got from reading about Earthships was that having a greenhouse is awesome, but having the greenhouse attached to/being a room in a house introduces way more problems than it's worth.)

(BTW2: Lest anyone think I'm just hating on Earthships, I am not. I think they are brilliant, elegant, and superior in so many practical and aesthetic ways compared to conventional production housing. If Earthships represent one end of a spectrum and conventional production housing is at the other end, I believe in a sane world we ought to be building houses way closer to the Earthship end of the spectrum.)

Remembered yet one more reason this morning; now I see it is listed among those posted by Douglas Alpenstock above: learning. I can think of no better way to gain an understanding of how something works than to fix it when it breaks.

I like the original three reasons. I have some more!

There's also the satisfaction of accomplishment, something I find highly addictive.

And, similar to Christopher Weeks' projecting an ethos of capability into the universe, especially so one's kids will see, I also want to project an ethos of capability inward to myself.

Another: there is a real connection between the healthy development of neural pathways and doing stuff with your hands. In other words, physical activity makes you smarter and will keep your mind sharp longer into old age. Problem-solving does too. Solving physical problems with your hands is another way to say "fixing stuff". It's good for you!

Anne Miller wrote:I don't know anything to say other than aluminum foil is not allowed in any of the SKIP PEP BB (badge bits).

Then I guess those pursuing those things will have to eat their leftover bread a bit more dry and stale than the rest of us Better safe than sorry I suppose, and hopefully a "Build Character" badge is thrown in as well!

Anne Miller wrote:Ned, I assume any unused water after heating is just pour off with any oil that might have dripped.

The water is not touching the meat as it is in the bottom of the air fryer.

I usually heat a biscuit and a sausage pattie by just putting them in a hot oven after it is turned off.

Maybe one day I will try the water with biscuit, though no tin foil:

https://permies.com/t/20481/aluminum-foil-bad

If meat has drippings I try to eat that too (hopefully it gets soaked up into a starch like bread or potatoes!) because it's flavortown.

I followed your link about foil, which took me to a forum page with four other links on it, only one of which worked. That link took me to a scholarly paper published by the NIH, so fortunately the most reputable of the four. I read the abstract. It said cooking with aluminum can raise aluminum content of food in a way that is "statistically significant, but not practically important". It went on to specify this as a concern for premature babies with malfunctioning kidneys and for expectant mothers who are relying on supplements, but it did not specify anyone else. This roughly aligns with what I remember learning decades ago when I looked deeper into a scare that was fashionable at the time about drinking from aluminum cans. So, maybe there was additional cause for alarm in the other links, but this was the only one that seemed to have been the product of peer-reviewed scientific rigor and my take from it is that for just about everyone, aluminum foil is safe. Ulcer averted! Which is good because wrapping it around bread that's been spritzed with water and then popping it in the oven or air fryer makes the bread seem fresh-baked.

Anne Miller wrote:Last night when I reheated a pork chop that had beeen cooked out on the grill, I was looking for the reheated temperature which was suggested between 140 and 165'F.

I read to add 2 tablespoons of water so the meat would stay moist.

I also saw a YouTube that suggests moistening the top of day old biscuits to make them as good as the day they were baked.

2 tablespoons of water seems like way too much. (I reheat meat in the microwave anyway.)

For breads like biscuits, baguettes, etc. yeah I get my hands wet then flick it a half dozen times with water, then wrap in foil and into the oven or air fryer, can confirm it comes out like fresh baked