Reuben's Home Inspection Blog

Ever since I was a teenager working at a hardware store, I've heard of people filling up pantyhose with salt and tossing them on their roof to create drainage channels in ice dams.  After hearing about this so many times and even seeing this method of creating drainage channels in ice dams on th...

  I've been doing a lot of attic inspections for Minneapolis homeowners with water leaking in to their houses, and in almost every case I find obvious problems in the attic that should be addressed to either prevent or significantly reduce ice dams.  I mentioned most of the stuff that I look for ...

We've received over 34" of snow in Minnesota in the last 25 days, which makes this the snowiest December on record.  While the snow turns our state in to a beautiful white winter wonderland, it also causes nasty ice dams that wreak havoc on homes like never before. The heavy amount of snowfall a...

When I think of homeowner maintenance, the first thing I think of is changing the furnace filter. Most homeowners know about this regular chore, and at least one out of five homeowners is diligent about doing this.  As for the rest of you... Do you really know why you're supposed to change your ...

  While I've already written about how to prevent ice dams from happening, I've found that I get far more inquiries about how to get rid of ice dams.   There are plenty of 'hack' methods out there, so I decided to try them out and blog about it. The methods I'm going to discuss involve axes, ice ...

At the last four home inspections that I've done, every home had frost problems in the attic. Have you checked for frost in your attic yet this year?  If you live in Minnesota or a similarly cool climate, now is a good time to check your attic for frost.   Temperatures in Minnesota have been in ...

After recently attending a seminar on permanent wood foundations (PWFs), I've been turned in to a big fan of wood foundations, but now I'm also pretty sure that about 99% of the wood foundations get built wrong. I was already suspicious about wood foundations before attending this seminar, becau...

  Anyone buying a short sale is faced with this dilemma; should the home inspection be performed before or after the offer is approved? Risk Wasting Money: If a buyer decides to have a home inspection before the offer is approved by the bank, the buyer risks wasting their money on the home inspec...

This is bad news for the manufacturers of Corrugated Stainless Steel Tubing (CSST).  CSST is a relatively new type of gas piping that has rapidly been replacing traditional gas piping in homes throughout America.  To learn more about this product, check out my blog about CSST. Key points of this...

Last week I blogged about not caulking at the base of storm windows, which is a simple no-brainer. Another place that should never be caulked is the space between the siding and the flashing above a window; this piece of flashing is often referred to as drip flashing, drip cap, or head flashing....