Home Inspection Observations from a Home Inspectors Perspective

Some of the things I learned while building my first website - Part 2 of 2

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 06:56:01 GMT

In no particular order, here are some of the things I have learned while building our website.

Good web design doesn't just happen
Planning doesn't always work out
Excellent copy writing skills are critical but, unfortunately, rare
There is more to font selection and font size than I had ever imagined
Improper font selection has been rumored to incite mass hysteria
Color selection and use can get out of hand very quickly
- Using the wrong color can apparently make your reader instantly hostile
- Using the right color will still apparently irritant some of your readers
- Colors carry more meaning than I would have ever imagined
Browser compatibility is somehow related to voodoo
Lots of people use IE
Lots of people don't use IE
Lots of people seem to really dislike IE, write long articles about it's shortcomings and then write code for it anyway
HTML, CSS and XHTML were just capital letters when I started this project
- They are still just capital letters but now I know what they stand for
I thought I knew what the term "keyword" meant
Researching keywords seems to take a lot of time
Keywords seem to generate anxiety
There is a big difference between 'keywords' and 'keyword phrases'
It is easy to find good help and information on the internet once you know what keyword phrase to type in
Who would have thought it was called that?
You need a number of meta tags on every page
Some of the meta tags are the same on every page and some aren't
Meta tags seem to generate some anxiety too
Features and benefits are still confusing, (e.g., it's not your grass seed, it's my lawn)
Writing copy that gets your prospect to even think about taking action seems nearly impossible
There are magic "action" words that are used when you write good copy
No one will tell me what they are
There are a minimum of six best ways to do everything and all other ways are inferior
I need an autoresponder
I need better copy so I have a use for the autoresponder I bought
I need a business newsletter
Newsletters are typically very time consuming
I need a business blog
I simply need more business to support everything else
Trying to understand PPC will make you take a deep breath, shudder and pucker all at the same time
Selecting a SEO strategy isn't exactly a straight forward process
Selecting a SEO strategy seems to include a "nagging doubt" side effect
Site optimization is very, very critical
No one seems to agree how site optimization should be done
Selecting a link strategy seems to be just as critical as site optimization
No one agrees on what the best link strategy is either
Picking a domain name isn't as easy as you might think
- Domain names, at least to some degree, seem to depend upon what internet article you read just before registering the name and what article you read just afterwords
- This factor alone seems to determine whether that night you sleep soundly or see the eerie outline of doom and despair clearly in front of you all night long
You need some SEO tools
- You have no clue which ones you need
- At least there are free SEO tools available
- Every site's free SEO tools are the best
- The free ones are good enough for starters
- There still isn't money for additional software
- It is a given, one of Murphy's Law's I believe, that the SEO tools you are not using are either vastly inferior or vastly superior to the SEO tools you are using and every SEO tool article you read confirms this fact
- Only the expensive SEO tools that you can not afford work effortlessly each and every time and every SEO tool article you read robustly confirms this fact
- Seemingly everyone that authors internet articles regarding SEO tools claim that all other SEO tool article authors lie habitually
- It seems that SEO tool article authors really do lie but they do not realize it for some reason
- The best choice to stop the whole SEO tool insanity is to simply pick the free SEO tools you like, use them and simply forgot about the others
- You can never forget completely
- The SEO tool rule above holds true with one exception. If you plan on marketing your product internationally the free SEO tools won't work and you really do need to purchase the expensive SEO tools. At that point I'm not sure what you do as I don't deal with international markets. I strongly suspect that for those unfortunate souls that must travel this lonely path, the world is never quite the same again.
I still read a lot of internet articles trying to understand how to improve my website
As usual, most articles say the other authors are wrong
Every verified, validated and proven method of doing anything website or internet related is totally and completely different than every other verified, validated and proven method for doing the same thing in every other internet article on the same topic
You need to optimize your website to get a good search engine ranking
No one agrees how to do this it seems
Everyone's optimization strategy is the best
You need a robot
You have to make your own robot
Robots are cool
Don't ever make Google mad for any reason
At some point you will blow it with Google
You should use a search engine submittal site to mass register your website with the different search engines
Using a mass search engine submittal site is the kiss of death and you might as well hang it up, shut it down and turn off the lights because you just blew it big time
I wish I knew which one of those last two statements was the most true
What is Yahoo really?
- You eventually begin to question if any of the sites listed there are real?
- How did they get on Yahoo anyway?
- More importantly though, how do I get listed on Yahoo?
I confirmed that Rule #1 is true.
- Rule #1: Everything costs a lot more than you think it will and you need everything at least once a day or more.
I reached a point when I actually learned enough to ask my ISP if they had widget X.
- I then found out that not only did they have it, they have had it from the start
- They had wondered a little why I hadn't already asked them for it but they didn't want to be too nosy
- The kicker here is that I had no clue to ask for it until I read the article
- I need to schedule more time for reading
What I still don't know would scare me a lot if I knew about it
Amateur webguys use way too many colors
Amateur webguys center way too much text
The nest egg you saved and set aside to carry you over while the business takes off is and never, ever will be any where close to big enough to cover all the things you and the business need and had not anticipated.
You simply accept this fact, make the best of it and keep making it happen one day to the next
One day you enter one of your keyword phrases into a search engine and your site shows up on page one
You here strange and incredible tales that claim this can also happen on Google
You learn that the site is really never finished and that you are never really done
I developed a certain cautious respect for nested ul and ol lists
It's been a wonderful experience
I have learned so much since I started and I continue to learn every day
There is so much I don't know it's scary
When does the new SitePro newsletter arrive?
How does Dreamweaver work?

Thanks once again to SitePro News and Al Guevara. You both have been instrumental in the building of Sunland Home Inspection.

Enough web stuff, let's get back to the exciting world of Professional Home Inspection.

Some of the things I learned while building my first website - Part 1 of 2

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 06:27:52 GMT

This is a two part post due to its length. Part 1 provides some background information on why I initially decided to build our company website and some of the challenges I encountered during the process. Part 2 lists some personal observations along with some of the things I've learned in the past year as I built the website.

Before any webmasters, experts and other knowledgeable folks review my site (http://www.sunlandhi.com) and start pointing out all the defects, the poor to really bad choices I made and just plain wrong stuff in the site, let me state for the record that I am a Certified Professional Home Inspector and only a struggling, amateur webguy.

I have no pretense of thinking my website is technically sound. However, for a Certified Professional Home Inspector and a guy that knew nothing about website design yada, yada, yada, and learned most of what I know by reading a newsletter coupled with trial-and-error programming, the website seems to be working and functioning adequately.

The items that currently need fixed or changed I mainly attribute to the fact that either SitePro News hasn't published that article yet, therefore I haven't read it and likely don't even know it exists or Al Guevara hasn't suggested that I change it. I will explain both of these shortly.

Could the website look and work better? Heck yes! Would I like it to? Heck yes! I will gladly accept any help and advice any of you might care to offer but, sorry, I still don't have extra money to pay you. If it helps in any way, I really would appreciate your help though.

The website project started in the spring of 2005 although the site did not go live until September 2005 due to some State of Arizona red tape. I initially worked on conceptualizing what I perceived a website should consist of as well as trying to understand some of the do's and don'ts of web design. Since I was using FrontPage, at least I didn't need to learn HTML and CSS code, yet. I was intrigued and profoundly confused in trying to understand the concept of website optimization and how it works as well as how it doesn't work. I provide my personal observations regarding website optimization and SEO in Part 2.

The decision for me to build the website became reality on a sunny Arizona summer afternoon when I said something to the effect: "Sorry, but I am not giving you $$ to build our website. I will do it myself." I then went online, did some searching, subscribed to a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Newsletter and started reading and reading and..., well, I still read a lot.

I owe a special "Thank You" to SitePro News (http://www.sitepronews.com/) for their help in building our website. SitePro News is the primary SEO newsletter that I have read and followed over the last year. In fact, many site revisions came shortly after a new issue of the newsletter arrived and reflected whatever topic it discussed. SitePro News steered me pretty well most of the time and the few exceptions I did encounter were mostly me implementing what I thought they said as opposed to what they actually said. So again, "Thank You SitePro News".

When I decided to build our website it was due to budgetary constraints coupled with my desire to be able to manage and make changes as required. We also needed those funds for inspection tools, professional fees, business cards, brochures, etc. We simply didn't have the money to hire someone to build it for us yet we both viewed it as an integral and needed business tool.

I started this project without any web whatever training and no experience with anything to do with website design, development, HTML, CSS or anything else to do with a website. Nada, nothing, zilch. I felt the two things I had going for me were my reading skills and my outright stubborness and stick-to-itiveness. I said I would build a usable website and I was going to do just that. I couldn't find a good reason why I wouldn't succeed.

I built the initial site using FrontPage 2000, a program I had never used and knew little about but happened to own. We had no extra money to purchase any other program so FrontPage was it.

I began by simply trying various program features, often wondering what they actually did, then looking at what had changed on the screen then searching the internet for a website that could help explain what had happened and how I could turn it into what I thought I wanted. You see, not having a working knowledge of either HTML or CSS, I often didn't know what much of it did or was suppose to do.

OK, it wasn't an efficient design method but by September I managed to build a 38 page website and get it online and without a single broken hyperlink. In early 2006 I upgraded to FrontPage 2003. Wow, that was really cool compared to FP 2000.

Until July 2006 I was using only the click and drag features of FrontPage to build and maintain the site. With starting our business and all that entails, learning code was not a priority. Not yet anyway.

Up to this point no one had given me any technical help, advice or suggestions on improving the website or correcting any of the many mistakes I had made. That was about to change though however because I was about to meet Al and Al would make a big difference.

In July 2006 I sent a link request to a real estate office in Tucson and received a somewhat terse email back from them declining the link. The reasons given were: "Your have no PR and your link page is WAY TO LONG. It will never get PR. 50-100 links per page is TOPS most Seo's agree. Al"

Al is Alvaro Guevara of Tucson, AZ. He owns and operates a web design business there, http://www.Tucson-WebDesign.com, and is an all around great guy that I also owe a very big "Thank you" to. So, "Al, thank you so much for your help."

I emailed this response back to Al:

"Al, Thank you for the advice. I will adjust my link pages as you advised.
Thanks,
David"

This began an email exchange between us where I explained that I was a full time home inspector and a part time struggling webmaster with no training or outside help other than what I read online. Al very kindly sent several emails with suggestions for improvements for the site.

Al's suggestions resulted in two consecutive major rewrites of every page in the website. The second of these is where I stopped using FrontPage in "wysiwyg" mode and started hand coding both HTML and CSS. I also begin to learn HTML and CSS.

I discovered during the second rewrite that FrontPage adds extraneous, and typically useless, code randomly throughout the pages. I had hoped that hand coding would prevent this from happening but it seemed to have no viable effect.

When the second rewrite was finished, my CSS code had successfully passed validation using the validator available on W3C.org. I also validated each of my ~38 pages to HTML Transitional 4.01. That took a lot of work but upon completion I sure knew the basics of CSS and HTML a lot better than I had two weeks earlier.

Within a week or so of completing that project, my partner and I met with a new home inspection client that also happens to be a web designer. He had located us via an internet search and was quite emphatic regarding his recommendation to switch from FrontPage to Dreamweaver and Flash Studio Pro. I guess I will have some new software to learn.

That is pretty much the story of how I ended up building the website and a few of the things that happened along the way. Part two consists of some personal observations and learning experiences I hadwhile building the site.

It's a Zinsco, what could it possibly hurt?

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 14:31:05 GMT

Imagine this if you will...

It is 8 PM, I'm sitting in the living room watching the Discovery channel, just beginning to relax and enjoy my supper. (And yes, it is supper, not dinner. I can prove this as well. Did Jesus have a last dinner? Enough said.)

So there I am, enjoying my meal when suddenly, out of nowhere comes that horrible smell, the smell of not just a fire but an electrical fire. You know what I mean, you remember that awful smell. Of course I immediately sprang into action, somewhat like a crazed Arizona Ringtail on speed but different somehow.

After spending a good ten minutes checking every electrical apparatus in the house and every room at least twice, I notice the reflection of flashing lights out the front window blind. As I enter the front patio I see two Scottsdale Police cars sitting sideways in the middle of the street directly in front of my house. To their left are two Fire Trucks and to their left are two more police cars.

The attraction for all of this municipal equipment was a neighbor's home that had just caught on fire due to an overload/arc in their Zinsco main electrical panel.

Not familiar with Zinsco? This site has a good article that should scare you a bit if you own one of these panels:
http://www.inspect-ny.com/electric/Zinsco.htm

As for my neighbor, he was really lucky the fire department got there so quick. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

My recommendation is to seriously consider upgrading to a newer main panel if you own a Zinsco or spend the money to have a qualified electrical contractor come out on a regular basis (at least once a year) and have it inspected.

After all the excitement I sank back into my chair, turned my attention back to the Discovery channel and finished the delicious sandwich I had been working on prior to all the fuss. I also said a prayer of thanks that it wasn't my house on fire and added a prayer for my neighbor that he and the family were safe.

It felt like my shoes were on fire

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 14:43:12 GMT

Yesterday I had to get on my composite shingle roof to make some repairs to my evaporative cooler. The reported high for yesterday was 108 F. I spent about two hours on the roof working on the evap cooler. This is a picture of the tennis shoes I was wearing on the roof after I came down from the roof.

The roof was hot enough that it melted the soles off my shoes. The roof was very hot and so was I. I also drank lots of water for the rest of the day.

If you find you have a need to perform work on your roof, I strongly suggest that you schedule it for as early in the morning as you can due to the high temperatures you encounter later in the day. Also, remember to take plenty of water with you as you will dehydrate very quickly in our summer time heat.

By the way, the evaporative cooler parts I purchased turned out to be the wrong ones (Don't worry mister, those are the right parts for sure!) so I get to do this repair again this coming week once the correct parts show up.

How hot does your roof get?

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:03:49 GMT

To give you an idea of our summer temperatures in the Phoenix area, here is a picture Mike took yesterday while doing a roof inspection. The reported high for Phoenix yesterday was 111 degrees F.

Can you say "Do you want that egg fried sunny-side-up?"

Dear Jesus, please make it rain in my attic to wash away the dust.

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 21:56:14 GMT

How many nails should you drive into your roof?

From time-to-time, Mike & I are asked about roof penetrations* and whether we recommend nailing or bolting things to your roof. When asked if it is a good idea our answer is typically "It depends".

*Roof Penetration: Intentionally making a hole in your beautiful roof. (Reference: Purgatory, Punishment Time Line Recommendations for Voluntary Roof Penetration)

It depends on what kind of roofing material you have, cement tiles are much different than composite shingles.
It depends on how many roof penetrations (nails or bolts) you are going to make & how big they will be.
It depends on how good of a job you will do and the complexity of whatever it is you are mounting on your roof.
It depends on how much work you are willing to do after you have secured whatever-it-is you put on the roof.

We always recommend using mastic on every roof penetration. "Cool" you say "but what is mastic?"

My source for this bit of info is: http://www.pmel.org/Roofing-Glossary.htm

Mastic: See asphalt plastic roofing cement.

Asphalt: A bituminous waterproofing agent applied to roofing materials during manufacturing. Asphalt plastic roofing cement: An asphalt-based cement used to bond roofing materials. Also known as flashing cement or mastic; should conform to ASTM D-4586.

Now that we have the technical stuff out of the way, suffice it say that, typically, mastic is the thick, black or gray, goopy stuff you see on roofs quite commonly. It is used to seal roof penetrations. (Please reference definition & punishment guidelines mentioned above). Here is an example where mastic should have been used but wasn't.

This picture brings to mind what this handyman must have been praying while mounting the basketball hoop.

"Dear Jesus, please make it rain in my attic to wash away the dust."

This is a likely outcome without the use of mastic to cover the roof penetrations.

If you see big splotches** of mastic on a roof it is a potential indicator of a past or present leak and that the roof is quite likely approaching it's design life. Yes, things happen in life that could mean only a small area of the roof needs repair or replacing and that the rest of the roof is fine, but, in general, (or in second-lieutenant) big splotches of mastic on a roof are not a desirable thing, period!

**splotch (splch)

An irregularly shaped spot, stain, or colored or discolored area: "spectacular splotches of color and beauty in the blossoms" Wendy Lyon Moonan.

tr.v. splotched, splotch·ing, splotch·es

To mark with splotches or a splotch.

as defined in http://www.thefreedictionary.com/splotch

This is a good example of a splotch:

I think that about wraps up todays blog. At some point I am going to discuss the downside of flying rats (pigeons) & your house.

Home handyman electricians vs. Russian Roulette - Which is more dangerous?

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:04:20 GMT

Let me unequivocally state that playing Russian Roulette is always a very bad idea and we always recommend never playing it! That said...

We've seen quite a few home handyman electrical wiring jobs. This recent one tops our current list of "Who would have thought..."

I had finished inspecting the main electrical panel and had found two circuit breakers missing along with the open hole in the interior panel cover. (Which is very unsafe because it allows direct access to the interior of the main panel where lots of volts and lots of amps reside.) OK, two breakers are completely gone and the interior panel has an open hole in it at about head height for a 10 year old child. Very unsafe, very accessible and very dumb!

Later while inspecting the garage, this is what I found.

Go figure. This is one of the missing breakers. We never recommend wiring a breaker into a glob of wires and just suspending it in midair but that is what our home handyman did. Very unsafe. This picture still gives me the willys! I still wonder from time-to-time where that second breaker went...

Then the HVAC guy said "Well, if it burns down it's not my fault..."

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:05:06 GMT

Some of the things we see just make us scratch our head and wonder "what could they have been thinking...". Here is an example of a new home we inspected in Maricopa recently.

A lot of folks ask us if they really need an inspection on new contruction. We hear so often, "It's new, what could possibly be wrong with it?"

What might you fiind if you just take a little time and look? When I looked in this attic I heard a voice in my head (something that troubles me from time-to-time by the way) saying I bet the HVAC guy said "Well, if it burns down it's not my fault...". Here is what I saw just inside the attic hatchway in the garage:

OK, someone left the main safety cover off the gas furnace. That's not the worst thing that could happen...right? Then I looked just a little to the right of the furnace cover...

This is what made that little voice in my head start chatting with me...

Yep, you're seeing correctly. That is a light bulb, say about the 150 watt version I think and yes, that is also the spot in the flexible ductwork that the light bulb has burned through. In all fairness, I do not know which came last, the light bulb or the flexible duct. Wouldn't common sense tell a person (let's say the installer of the ductwork) that regardless of which one was last, shouldn't I move the light fixture (or have it moved) so it won't be in direct contact with potentially combustible material? (Two nails & that light fixture can be moved a safe distance from the ductwork. Ok, two nails and maybe one staple.

This picture serves to tell us to never think that common sense will always prevail because sometimes it just doesn't. This is a case in point.

We have found this scenario more than once. A slightly different version with potentially the same effect is to put the gas furnace vent alongside the flexible duct. Think I'm kidding? I found this while doing a 1 year warranty inspection very recently. The owner of the home was shocked and grateful that they had not run the gas furnace last winter. (That wasn't the only dangerous item I found in that inspection but that is another story for another blog.)

Have you looked in your attic recently? You just never know what you might find. Let's hope it is not flying rats commonly referred to as pigeons. (Again, another story for another blog.)

Building a new home?
Think you should skip getting a home inspection?
It's a new house, what could possibly be wrong with it?

Diving Boards - Why we recommend removing them if you have one

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:05:19 GMT

We do a large number of pool inspections. As a company philosophy, we recommend the removal of diving boards in every pool we inspect.

In our opinion, diving boards are an accident waiting to happen.

Here is a diving board at a pool we inspected recently. Looks pretty good here. It should be great fun, right?

Here is what we found when we wiggled it just a little to see how sturdy it was...

It wasn't attached to the front support at all even though the bolt head was still in place and looked fine from the top. The rear bolts were on the verge of snapping off as well. The buyer was pretty surprised seeing as she had just told me how much fun the diving board would be. Many of the diving boards we see are in similar condition.

Would you want to be the diver that discovered this condition on your first dive from this board?
Would you want to be the one that took them to the emergency room?

My first entry & the start of my journey to blog-awareness

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:05:33 GMT

Hi. Thanks for stopping by and looking at our blog. This is our (my) first entry. Being new to the blogging world, bear with me as I cruise along the learning curve to blog-awareness. Where it will lead should be interesting. Where it will end will likely be very unexpected I am sure.

You will see references to Mike & David throughout this blog. We are 2 brothers in Phoenix, Arizona that own & operate a home inspection company named Sunland Home Inspection. We own the company, we do all of the inspections, we really care about doing a great job for every customer and we are passionate about our work. Please excuse me for putting in an occasional plug for our services as well.

We started this blog after a discussion Mike & I had about some of the odd things we have seen during our home inspections. During that talk, the comment "Who would have thought..." came up again and again. Some things we've seen are funny, some are peculiar, some are really neat & interesting and some are just plain frightening & dangerous.

We decided that maybe we should blog about these things and offer a place for you to add comments, insight and/or questions about a home inspection you have had or just a home inspection comment or question. We do not intend this blog to be the end-all informative home inspection information site. Rather, we want it to be a rather informal, down-to-earth blog about home inspections and related issues.

We encourage you to comment on topics as you see fit, ask us questions, link to us, etc.

For our part, we hope to be at least part entertaining, part thought provoking and always informative.

Thanks for giving us a look. Let's get started on the journey shall we...

About Mike & David

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 01:49:16 GMT

We both love to grow, cook & eat hot peppers!

This is us (David / Mike) winning the hot chili cookoff in Jan. 2006 at the Glendale West Maricopa County Board of Realtors Chili Cookoff - Believe me, our chili deserved to win

Mike: Davids brother. Long time resident of Arizona. State Certified Professional Home Inspector. Active gardener. If you attend the AZ State Fair & have looked in the AG Building Vegetable display, the produce from Mike's garden amounts to a good sized portion of what you see. Avid outdoorsman. Avid open-wheel racing fan.

Notable Accomplishments: Winner of the one & only Purple Rosetta for Canned Peppers ever awarded by the AZ State Fair. Not bad for a guy!

David: Mikes brother. Long time resident of Arizona. State Certified Professional Home Inspector. Active gardener. Just too busy to enter my vegetables in the state fair. Avid open-wheel racing fan. Avid outdoorsman and I am an avid catfisherman. My largest catch so far has been a 58 lb. Flathead Catfish caught last summer at Roosevelt Dam. After the photos were taken, I released the fish. What a thrill!

Notable Accomplishments: As I recall it, I helped Mike with the selection and canning of those peppers. My 58 lb. catfish.

Shameless Pitch About Us

david@sunlandhi.com (David) — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:06:17 GMT

We are two brothers that decided working for ourselves would allow us to provide you with the customer service you deserve along with a great home inspection.

We are family owned & operated. We believe this is an important part of our company. We are the owners and the inspectors. Believe me when I say we care about every inspection we do. By the way, We are Highly Recommended by MOM!

We are not a franchise. We do not have a big corporate office behind us. When you hire Sunland Home Inspection to perform your home inspection, you either get Mike or David, or maybe both of us. As the owners & the home inspectors, we can assure you that we view every home inspection as the most important one we have done so far. Providing you the best home inspection around coupled with superior customer service sets us apart from the crowd. We value your business and it shows.