Structure Talk

Our very own Lisa Ferrario joins the show to discuss the evolution of home inspections, scheduling, and all things related.

To follow up on our podcast from several weeks about building permits, we invited building official Andy Schreder with Rum River Construction Consultants onto the show to discuss everything we may have been wrong about in our previous episode. Either we got most of it right or Andy was really nice because we didn’t discuss much from the previous episode. Andy did offer some very interesting insigh...

Twenty-five-year real estate veteran Rhonda Wilson joins the show a second time to discuss pre-listing inspections. Rhonda has been encouraging her sellers to get pre-listing inspections for the past decade, and she has become quite accustomed to having her listings sell faster and with far fewer hassles than most other real estate agents are accustomed to. She explains how frustrating it is to ha...

Experienced real estate agent Rhona Wilson joins the show to help the gang have a good conversation about allowable real estate terms. The idea for the show came up while having an internal company conversation about the term “master bedroom”, and whether or not that term should be abandoned in favor of a more PC term. Rhonda talks about fair housing law, explaining a lot of terms and photos that...

Reuben begins the show talking about how Structure Tech has started a TikTok account , and nearly puts Bill to sleep. At the time, we hadn’t yet made a TikTok, but we’ve made one since.  The conversation quickly turns to the main topic of the show, and the gang spends the rest of the show discussing all things related to building permits. Are they worth it? Do we all pull permits at our own houses...

Bill, Tessa, and a Reuben are back together in the studio to discuss what successful homeowner looks like. It’s all about running your household like a business. Everything shares how they budget for major items in their home, and what types of items should be budgeted for on a regular basis. Reuben waxes on the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz and explains how he and his wife have furthered...

James Thomas joins the show to talk about all things related to home inspections. The show starts off with James touching on the origins of the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI), and how he ended up in his current position. The conversation shifts to education and training for home inspectors, and James talks about some recent changes to The ASHI School. James also talks about increasing...

For this episode, the gang gets down and dirty discussing disgusting doozies discovered during home inspections. Most of the grossest stuff is related to people and animals, but that's not all. Don't listen to this episode while eating.

The gang discusses hard-to-find home inspection discoveries, which they call Easter Eggs. Reuben talks about a recent inspection that he did, and shares some of the finds from that inspection. One of those was a blocked toe-kick register below the kitchen sink, pictured here . Reuben also discusses finding a hot dimmer switch that controlled a 900-watt chandelier. The conversation turns to furnace...

The gang discusses a timeline of home inspection defects or issues that might come up, based on when the home was built. Reuben shared this timeline on the Structure Tech blog and on the Structure Tech YouTube channel, but we thought it would be fun to discuss these issues during a podcast to help explain some of them a little bit more in-depth.

Bill opens the podcast talking about a terrifying fire that happened across the hallway in his mother-in-law's condo high-rise building, and about the damage caused by smoke and water. The gang discusses the possibility of an FPE Stab-Lok panel causing the fire, and Reuben goes on to discuss the disproportionate number of condo buildings with FPE panels when compared to single-family homes. T...

Bill, Tessa, and Reuben start the show discussing a few minor corrections to the podcast from two weeks ago on air conditioners. Next, they discuss the new standards for home inspection attendance and safety for home inspections. Reuben also mentions a facemask that most Structure Tech home inspectors are wearing, which can currently be found here .

For this podcast episode, Reuben does a one-on-one interview with Structure Tech's business coach, Dr. Stephen Crawford. Dr. Crawford has been conducting weekly team huddles for his coaching clients every Friday morning, and he conducted a special meeting on May 29th to focus on George Floyd, protests, riots, racism, and advice to business owners. Dr. Crawford shares his insight for this podc...

Bill, Tessa and Reuben discuss how air conditioners function, why it's extremely unusual to have an undersized air conditioner, and the end of R-22 refrigerant. Older air conditioners that contain R-22 refrigerant are typically going to be cost-prohibitive to service, but it's not illegal to do so. We also mention a video compilation we assembled showing 60 home inspection defects in 3 m...

The gang is super-excited to finally get  Patrick Heulman , a leading building science expert, on the show! We've talked about having him as a guest for a long time and now that we're temporarily recording our podcasts from our homes, we were able to get Pat on the show. He's an Associate Extension Professor with the University of Minnesota and works on several other projects as wel...

Milind Angolkar was the first home inspector to join the Structure Tech team after Reuben, and we love him. In fact, everyone loves Milind because he's a good, kind person. We start the show by discussing Milind's history with the company, and Milind shares some crazy home inspection fail stories.

Bill starts off the conversation talking to Reuben and Tessa about life, spring maintenance, and business in general. Reuben and Tessa go on a tangent talking about mean feedback given during free continuing education classes, which leads to Tessa discussing her current project of creating a home inspector training curriculum. Bill brings up leaking faucets, and that leads into leaking backflow pr...

The gang starts off the show by talking about their lives spent working from home, and they quickly move on to projects happening around the house. Bill discusses the time that he ended up with a frozen outdoor faucet because he forgot to remove his garden hose.  Reuben talks about the time that his entire 1.5-story home flooded because of a plumbing leak on the second floor. Tessa reminds us of t...

Bill, Tessa, and Reuben start the show off by talking about the new standards for life at home, working with family, and trying to broadcast to large audiences while not having spouses carry on loud phone conversations in the same room. Reuben discusses how COVID-19 has changed the face of home inspections at Structure Tech, and has the potential to change home inspections forever. Tessa talks abo...

Bill, Tessa, and Reuben do their first-ever remote podcast, where everyone on the team broadcasts from home. The gang discusses changes that COVID-19 has brought to the home inspection world, which includes things such as restricting buyer and seller attendance at the inspection, wiping down surfaces, and even wearing a mask during the inspection. They also discuss the importance of having a suppo...

Do ceiling fans actually cool down rooms? No! They only cool people. Reuben and Tessa explain how this works, while Bill grumbles about how he still likes running fans all over his house while he's not home. In the sustainable urban core. The gang also discusses the misconceptions that more insulation is always better, high-efficiency furnaces are always better, and new windows are a smart in...

We have Dan on for a second podcast because there was just too much content to cover in one episode. We continue on with the discussion of pocket listings, and Dan discusses the pulse of real estate in the Twin Cities market. This episode was recorded earlier in March before our entire world turned into the twilight zone, but there is still a lot of excellent information in this podcast about list...

For this episode, we sit down with Minnesota Realtor® Dan Sibinski to talk about the ins and outs of pocket listings. Tessa also shares a frustrating personal story related to pocket listings.

We interview Reuben's dad, Neil Saltzman, on this episode. Neil talks about doing home inspections in a suit and tie, and Reuben and Neil talk about the early history of home inspections. Reuben also shares the best advice that Neil ever gave him related to doing a good home inspection.

We interview Minneapolis Truth-In-Sale of Housing   (TISH) program supervisor Breanna Patsch during this podcast. We discuss the purpose of the Minneapolis TISH program, and how the program has 'teeth'. We also sidetrack into the licensing requirements for TISH evaluators and discuss how difficult the licensing exam is, making the National Home Inspector Exam seem like a cakewalk. We als...