Kevin Corsa (H.I.S. Home Inspections)'s Blog

Wow! I just learned how to change the font color and size in my blogs! Very Cool. Ok. For those of you who don't know, it's too easy. Just go into the HTML side of the blog post, and type in the code: Start with the left arrow (<) font color="blue"(>)(<)font size="3"(>) When you type this, leave...

Below, I have copied an email scam where several different people have attempted to contact me through Active Rain. The last one even called me many times, starting at 5am in the morning, to beg me to participate. I had the Sheriff call him back. But anyway, here is the last letter sent. If you g...

I am usually all for technological advances, and advances in computer science. But when it comes to operating systems, I think Microsoft has taken some giant leaps backwards with Vista. I really used to love working on the Windows 98 2nd ed. platform. It gave me functionality, combined with user...

This is a picture of a missing shingle tab on a roof, close-up. You can see the gap and the exposed nails. From the gound, this may look like a small section, with a slightly different color than the surrounding roof. Broken off shingle tabs are usually caused by wind lifting up under the tab, a...

This is a brick 1/2 wall in the front of a house that has severely separated from the house wall behind it. The cause? Improperly sloped and flashed/caulked at top of wall where the brick meets the siding. Years of water going behind the brick, freezing and thawing has caused it to push away. No...

I was inspecting a home last week, where a very large tree had fallen the day before from the yard of the house I was inspecting (which was vacant), and had crushed the neighbors fence, and a large portion of the tree was now taking up the neighbors back yard. During the inspection, he came over...

Had to do it last week on a vacant house, bank owned. It had a lock box hanging on the front door, with a locked storm door nobody seemed to have a key for. So the realtor tells me to break open the storm door. I of course say that I will not be liable for the damages, and then go ahead and do as...

A few years back, the mere mention of the word mold sent many realtors and others involved in home sales into a panic. It was considered a deal-killer, basically because so many understood so little about it. Hopefully, by now the word has gotten out that in most cases, mold does not have to be f...

Well, the door was THERE yesterday..... This an extreme example of overgrown foliage on the back of .... hmm... I think it's a garage. Ivy and similar foliage may be aesthetically pleasing wrapping around an arbor, or a fence, but if it is allowed to grow on exterior house (or garage walls) it c...

A sump pump is genrally located in a basement, or sometimes a crawl space, and is intended to pump water to a higher location or drain. General uses include pumping groundwater from a homes footer pipes up and out to a drain, or pumping water from a low drain (like basement laundry sink drain) wh...