Why You Should Offer Additional Home Inspection Services

Offering additional services to your Clients helps you in more ways than just income. Here are several advantages to offering multiple services.

1. Offering additional services requires little, to no up front money. Some services may require specialized inspector tools, but you can get started in most for low cost.
2. Increased income from the same Client. This means while you’re income increases, your expenditures on advertising, gas to get there, reporting and other expenses stay the same. Increasing the amount you make from each Client will exponentially grow your income like nothing else. You’re already at the home, you might as well take advantage of it!
3. Offering additional services makes you and your company look professional. This gives Clients more trust in you which leads to them more likely calling you over your competition who doesn’t offer such services. Even if they don’t use your add-on services.
4. Some of the skills you’ll gain by offering additional services may open up a whole line of other work for you. For example, I was doing ‘Energy Audits’ before they became popular. Then when the whole ‘Green Energy’ explosion came along, I was finding that the demand for an experienced Energy Inspector had some great financial benefits. Since my Energy Inspections were nearly as much as a normal home inspection, and the reporting was simpler, you can see why I loved doing Energy audits!
5. Additional services may bring in Clients that you would otherwise not get. It was not uncommon to be doing one type of Inspection and the Client, or friends or family, would come ask me if I did other types of Inspections. I also made sure my business card told of all the Inspections that I performed. This was a real boom, especially with my Commercial Inspection clients because they usually knew other people who were buying homes or businesses that would need inspection. Or if they ever needed a specialized inspection, they knew who to call.

These are only four good reasons to offer specialized inspections and additional services. But before throwing out more shingles, make sure your Insurance company will cover you (if you’re required to have insurance). Also you’ll need to find out whether the additional services below require an additional license in your area. For example, in some places you must be certified before you can perform Carbon Monoxide inspections.

Additional Home Inspection Services You Can Offer To Increase Your Income

• Construction Phase Inspections – Since I had a strong background in Construction and Building Codes, it was only natural that I became Code Certified and offered my Clients Construction Phase Inspections. Especially since I could show them how City Inspectors as well as the Builders Inspectors often missed serious flaws. I would typically have 3 to 4 Phase Inspections before the Builder finished the home. These included: Pre-Pour inspection (before the foundation was poured), Phase 1 (frame inspection just prior to the Roof being installed), Phase 2 (when home is dried and rough electrical and plumbing has been installed), and Final Inspection. There were times when the housing market for pre-owned homes tanked that these Phase Inspections kept me and my Inspectors busy.
• Carbon Monoxide Testing – I highly recommend you get the proper training for carbon monoxide training whether you’re required too or not. There are quite a few Inspectors who offer this service and it’s a good boost to your bottom line if your charge enough for it.
• Water Well Inspections – My Dad had his own drilling company while I was growing up. So it was only natural that I offered a service where I’d check out the equipment for my rural customers who had water wells. Your state may require you to have a special license, so again, check it out before jumping in. Also if your able to do it, you may want to offer to do water test for them…at an extra fee of course!
• Outbuilding Inspections – Speaking of rural customers, many of mine had detached Garages, Shops and Barns. I always offered to check the structure and any electrical or plumbing that was present for an extra fee.
• EIFS Inspections – Although from what I’m seeing these days, this isn’t as big as a market as it once was, it may be worth your time and effort to get certified in this field. Just check around your area and see what other EIFS inspectors are getting and how busy they are.
• Mold Testing – Again, this one usually requires extra licensing and certification so check before jumping into it. This is another market that has cooled off but there are still plenty of Citizens worried about it who will pay good money to have it checked before buying a home.
• Swimming Pools – These can be real big money makers if you have the training and expertise to do them. Of course, be sure that there’s a demand for them before getting trained. If you live in a place like Fairbanks Alaska, I don’t think you’d have much demand for them. See what I’m talkin’ about?
• EMF (Electro Magnetic Field) Testing – This is one that I never took up because I just never found enough information about it for me to consider it credible. But over the years, I had plenty of people ask me about it.
• Microwave Testing – This is one that I would do just for kicks and to get some “Oohs and Awess” from from my Clients. There is a microwave tester (I think it’s called Micro Chek) you put inside the Microwave and turned it one. It had three differnet lights that would light up if the microwave was operating properly. If the lights didn’t flash consistently, then you knew you had bad coverage. You could run this same tester around the door to see if there was any leakage of the microwaves from the unit itself. It was pretty cool, but I never charged for it and my tester “walked” away one day while training another inspector. But I’ve heard of others charging anywhere from $5 to $15 to do this.
• Building Envelope Inspections – This could be teamed up with Energy Audits to make a heckuva potential income stream. It’s also seems to be the big thing these days as more and more home inspectors are using Thermal Imaging cameras. It should go without saying that you’ll need some good training. Don’t scrimp on the training here. You usually get what you pay for!
• Wood Destroying Insect (Termite) Inspections – I’m not aware of any State that does not require you to be licensed to do these test. I’m not saying there isn’t a State out there that doesn’t, I’m saying that it’s a good chance that your State will require you to be licensed to do these. But this is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, additional service Inspectors offer to their Clients.

So there you have it. A lit of additional home inspection services you can offer to your Clients to bring in more income for you. Like I said earlier, the more you can do at a home, the less marketing and such you’ll have to pay for. It just makes good sense to be as efficient as you can in this business. If there is an additional service you’re offering to your Clients to make money but isn’t listed above, drop me a comment and let us know about it!

Tools You’ll Need To Perform EIFS Inspections

I know guys who say they perform “EIFS Inspections” who used nothing more than an orginal Tramex and a Raytech thermometer. Even after I tell them that the original Tramex does not scan deep enough to find moisture in the substrate, they could have cared less. I cringe when I think of all the homes they “inspected” the EIFS on.

In order to do a proper EIFS inspection, you’re going to need some basic tools to get the job done right. There’s no getting around it or taking shortcuts if you want to do a good job.

Here are a few of the tools I recommend:

Tramex Wet Wall Detector: This is the Mac Daddy of moisture meters in my opinion. It has two ranges. Low for 1 inch systems and High for thicker systems. This is a non-invasive moisture meter and great for quickly finding trouble spots. This moisture meter isn’t cheap. That’s why you need to be sure your market can support your plans of offering an EIFS inspection service. These meters start at $1000 and go up. You can find used ones on ebay from former Inspectors who tried to offer EIFS inspection services but failed.

Invasive Moisture Meters: You have a choice here. These moisture meters will be used to insert holes into the EIFS that you’ve drilled due to potentially high levels of moisture that you’ve located with your Tramex Wet Wall Detector. Your invasive moisture meter will need probes that range from 4 to 6 inches depending on the manufacturer. I used a Protimeter Surveymaster EIFS probes during my Inspection years, but Delmhorst also makes a line of great meters with probes for this job as well. Again, these aren’t cheap. Expect to pay in the $500 and up range.

Tramex offers both types of moisture meters in their Tramex EIFS Inspection Kit. Worth taking a look at if you’re serious about getting into this line of inspections.

Structural Resistance Tester (SRC): This is a tool that measures the structural integrity of the EIFS substrate. I can’t tell you how many times I found dry substrate that was about as structurally sound as tissue paper. If I had went solely on moisture meter readings, I would have never found that large portions of the EIFS was structurally unsound. To use the SRT, you insert it into one of the holes you’ve drilled and start pushing. There’s when/if the probe pushes through the substrate, there’s a needle gauge that will tell you how much pressure it took to push the probe through the substrate.

Reporting Software: From what I’ve seen, only a few Inspection Reporting companies have an EIFS version. If you know what you’re doing, you really don’t need stand alone EIFS reporting software, but it can make for a better report, especially if you’re new to this type of inspection. Some companies have EIFS reporting templates you can integrate with the main program, so if you plan on doing this type of inspection, check with the company who makes your reporting software. If you’re just getting into the home inspection business and you think you’ll be doing EIFS inspections, make sure the reporting software you use has an EIFS version.

And that’s about all the specialty tools it takes to inspect EIFS.

Where To Get Training to Do EIFS Inspections

EIFS Training & Certification Organizations

Your best bet at have a successful EIFS training service is to become Certified with one of the companies out there that certify EIFS inspectors.

Exterior Design Institute is the one I’m familiar with and (at least in the past) offer some extremely good training. In fact, many experts consider them as the authority in EIFS training and certification. They offer seminars and online training as well.

American Wall & Ceiling Institute (AWCI) – The AWCI has a very good, in depth training and certification program. In my opinion, every bit as good as EDI’s. Some would say even better do to their requirements one must meet before being considered for the certification program. If you’re a newbie to inspections, you can probably forget about getting this certification because you’ll have to show evidence of actual inspection experience for a few years.

EIFS Training Programs & Schools

Professional Inspector Training Institute offers EIFS inspection training. This is a 1 day class/seminar.

National Association of Certified Home Inspectors also offers a course on inspecting EIFS.

Personally, I’d recommend both the EDI and AWCI certification if you’re wanting to be considered a true professional in the EIFS inspection industry. Also, finding another EIFS inspector and learning the ropes is a good idea. Even you have to travel a state or two away and spend some time with them. EDI has a list of Certified EIFS Inspectors on their website. Check them out and call a few before jumping into this specialized inspection field. It just might save you some money and heart ache on down the road!

I’ve owned about 6 to 8 different types of moisture meters over the years. Some were outstanding and others not so much. But the Tramex Moisture Encounter PLUS was my favorite non-invasive moisture meter I’ve ever used. It simply worked and worked very well. I had the original Tramex Moisture Encounter and it was just as good. The difference between the original model and the PLUS model is that the PLUS version is stated by Tramex to go up to an inch deep into materials along with a larger display and an on/off audio warning. It also has an automatic cut off switch that shuts the unit off when not in use. This will save you batteries! Trust me, there’s few things more annoying than to reach into your tool bag to get your Tramex and find out that the switch was left on at the last inspection and you have dead batteries!

One thing that I did not like about the Tramex is that due to it’s design, you couldn’t get it into some tight spots. That is one reason I ended up buying a Protimeter. Overall I liked the Tramex better, but sometimes I needed a smaller moisture meter to get in those hard to reach areas.

The TR115 Moisture Encounter has three levels of sensitivity that works well on drywall, wood, concrete, brick, etc. All you do is select the type of material you want to test and you’re ready to go. If you’re into a spot you can’t see the display, then simply switch the audio warning on and you’ll hare a series of loud beeps if moisture is found. If it’s a high level of moisture, the beeps will come quicker and quicker notifying you that you may have found a trouble spot.

Along with the audio warning, the Tramex PLUS also has a ‘hold’ button. Once you think you’ve found high levels of moisture, just hit the hold button and the reading will remain the same until you release it by hitting the hold button again. I can’t tell you how sweet this feature is, or how incredibly invaluable it is!

Whether you’re starting out or you’re an Old Salt at inspecting homes, you owe it to yourself and your Clients to have a Tramex Moisture Encounter PLUS in your tool bag. But don’t stop there, because as good as this unit is, it won’t help you one red scent if you don’t pull it out and use it!

So follow along and if you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll be happy to try and help you figure out which tools you need, and which inspector tools you don’t need.