Home Inspection Blog

You don't need a $30,000 kitchen remodel before selling your house. You might need a $7 furnace filter. That's not nearly as exciting. Nobody posts before-and-after pictures of their new furnace filter on Instagram. There's no HGTV show called Extreme GFCI Makeover. But after inspecting hundreds of homes throughout my career, I can tell you that inspection reports aren't filled exclusively with dramatic foundation failures, collapsing roofs and haunted electrical panels.

I'm excited to officially announce that Midwest Inspect is now serving clients as a licensed home inspector in both Illinois and Wisconsin. Illinois is where I originally became licensed and built Midwest Inspect. It's where I've crawled through attics, squeezed into crawlspaces, walked roofs, opened electrical panels and explained to countless homeowners that, no, the strategically placed bucket under the plumbing is not technically a repair. Now we're crossing the state lin

The Home Inspector’s Early-Fall HVAC & Safety Check The Midwest Homeowner Survival Guide: Summer → Fall — Part 4 Check these 10 crucial furnace maintenance tips for Illinois homeowners to ensure a safe and efficient transition into fall. Stay prepared with Midwest Inspect's safety checklist. The worst time to discover your furnace doesn’t work is the exact same morning everyone else in Illinois discovers theirs doesn’t work. You know the morning. Yesterday it was 78°. Today i

By late summer, we've had months of Midwest thunderstorms, humidity and heavy rain putting our homes' water-management systems through their annual stress test. And that's exactly why late summer is one of the best times to inspect your basement for moisture problems. As a home inspector with Midwest Inspect, water management is one of the biggest things I'm paying attention to during an inspection. Not because every damp basement means the foundation is failing. It doesn't.

Snow is nature's version of fresh paint. Everything looks great when you can't see what's underneath it. Every fall in Illinois, our homes slowly begin disappearing. First, the grass gets covered with leaves. Then the landscaping starts dying back. Daylight disappears sometime around lunch. And eventually snow arrives and gives the entire property a beautiful white blanket that says: "Don't worry about any of this until April."

By late summer, your house has taken a beating. As a home inspector with Midwest Inspect, this is the time of year when I start noticing the evidence. The good news? Late summer and early fall give homeowners a perfect opportunity to catch small problems before snow, ice, freezing temperatures and another Illinois winter arrive. So grab a cup of coffee, walk around the house, and pretend you're a home inspector for 20 minutes. Here’s what I’d be looking for.

If you've ever owned a home, you've probably had one of these moments. You're carrying laundry downstairs. You notice a crack. You stop. You stare at it. You immediately grab your phone and type: "Is this normal?" Ten minutes later, Google has convinced you that: your foundation is collapsing, your furnace has one week to live, and your water heater is plotting against your family. Take a deep breath. As a home inspector with Midwest Inspect, I answer these questions almost e

Some of the most expensive home repairs I’ve seen started with something small. Really small. Not a failing roof. Not a cracked foundation. Not a furnace gasping for its last breath. Sometimes the problem starts with a $12 outlet. More specifically: A missing or failed GFCI receptacle. And that tiny safety device can be the difference between: a minor repair, a serious electrical hazard, water damage, or a very expensive insurance claim.

There is something incredibly satisfying about walking into a freshly renovated house. New floors. Fresh paint. Modern kitchen. Updated bathrooms. Brand-new appliances that still have the stickers on them. Everything smells new. Everything looks clean. And somewhere in the distance, a gray vinyl plank floor is being installed in another house. As a home inspector, I've inspected plenty of renovated and flipped homes throughout Illinois. And I want to make something clear befo

Nobody ignores a $20,000 repair. But a $100 repair? That one's easy to put off until next weekend. Or next month. Or... next year. As a home inspector with Midwest Inspect, I've learned something after inspecting hundreds of homes throughout Illinois: The biggest repair bills almost never begin with a catastrophic event. They begin with something so small that most homeowners barely notice it.

Being a home inspector in the Midwest means Mother Nature is basically your co-worker. And she has a strange sense of humor. One week it's 95 degrees with enough humidity to swim through the air. The next week Canadian wildfire smoke has the sky looking like Mars. Then comes a thunderstorm that dumps an inch of rain in twenty minutes. Fast forward a few months...

There's a moment during some home inspections when everyone in the room gets unusually quiet. The buyer stops taking pictures. The Realtor slowly lowers their pen. The seller suddenly becomes very interested in the weather outside. And I'm standing there thinking... "Well... this one isn't going to be fixed with a trip to the hardware store." As a home inspector with Midwest Inspect, I've inspected hundreds of homes throughout Illinois. Most homes have normal maintenance item

Nobody wakes up on a Saturday morning hoping to spend $25,000 on their house. Unfortunately... Houses don't always ask for permission. As a home inspector with Midwest Inspect, I inspect homes every day throughout Illinois. While most inspection reports include maintenance items and smaller repairs, every now and then I come across defects that make everyone standing nearby quietly say: "...Well, that's going to be expensive."

As a home inspector with Midwest Inspect, I've seen what happens when a great cookout turns into an expensive insurance claim. So before you light the grill, spark up the smoker, or declare yourself Captain of the Backyard BBQ Brigade, here are a few tips to help keep your celebration safe—and stress-free.

I Appreciate the Effort, But Please Don't Do This to Your House Tales of DIY Disasters: Exploring the Top 10 DIY Home Repairs Gone Wrong. As a home inspector with Midwest Inspect, I want to start by saying something important: I love DIY projects. Some homeowners are incredibly talented. I've seen beautiful decks, impressive renovations, custom woodworking, and repairs that rival professional craftsmanship. And then... I've seen the other stuff. The repairs that make me stop,

As a home inspector with Midwest Inspect, the first 60 seconds often tell me a surprising amount about a property. Now before homeowners panic...This isn't about judging. I'm not grading landscaping choices. I'm not criticizing lawn ornaments. And I'm definitely not reporting your inflatable Christmas decorations still standing in June. But homes leave clues. Lots of clues. And many of them are visible before I ever step foot inside. Let's take a walk from the street to the f

House flipping can be a beautiful thing. A neglected property gets a second chance. An outdated home gets modernized. An ugly duckling becomes the nicest house on the block. I've inspected some fantastic flips over the years. But I've also inspected some homes that appeared to be renovated by a group of caffeinated squirrels armed with YouTube tutorials and unlimited confidence. The challenge for buyers is this: Some flips are professionally done. Some are cosmetically done.

The Questions Homeowners Google at 10:37 PM Every home inspector knows the look. A homeowner points at something in their house and asks: "Is that normal?" Sometimes the answer is: "Absolutely." Other times the answer is: "Well... let's talk about that." As a home inspector with Midwest Inspect, I hear the same questions over and over again. And honestly, they're good questions. Homes make noises. Things crack. Things settle. Things leak. And Google isn't always helpful. So l

Are Houses Actually Being Built Out of Cardboard? If you've walked through a new construction home lately, you've probably heard someone say: "They don't build them like they used to."Usually followed by: "This place feels like it's made out of cardboard." As a home inspector, I hear this all the time. And after crawling through hundreds of attics, squeezing into thousands of crawlspaces, and spending more time staring at framing lumber than any normal person should, I can te

"The 5 Things Slowly Destroying Your Illinois Home" 💧 Water ⬇️ Gravity ❄️ Freeze-Thaw Cycle 🌳 Trees 🔧 Deferred Maintenance