Protect Your Peace: The Value of Home Inspections – Victoria Ballantine

Shaun Majumder: When I say unfinished basements, how do you react?

Victoria Ballantine: I find some of the worst things on new builds. Water is the enemy.

Shaun: Water is the enemy.

Shaun: Home inspections are a crucial part of the buying and selling process. They can reveal hidden issues with the home. They could save money. They ensure safety, which gives buyers and sellers that extra peace of mind. REALTORS^®, it's important to really understand what these inspections cover so that they can guide their clients through this complicated process.

Today, we're being joined by the one and only Victoria Ballantine. When I say one and only, I mean it because she is the one and only female home inspector in all of BC's Lower Mainland. She’s got 25 years of construction experience. Today, she's going to talk to us about the process, the ins and outs of home inspections, some of her wild discoveries, and how to work well with an inspector through this crazy process. I think you're going to really like it. It's so much fun. Let's get to it. This is great. Victoria, welcome to REAL TIME. How are you doing?

Victoria: Excellent. Thank you for having me.

Shaun: This is so cool. Now, listen, being the only female home inspector in all of Lower Mainland BC, it sounds like you should have a trophy, a plaque. You should have a statue. Is this kind of a big deal? Are there no other female home inspectors?

Victoria: If you want to take a ferry for quite a fair ride over to Vancouver Island, there are some excellent female home inspectors there. If you want to go way far away into wine country, there's also some awesome women up there. Everywhere else down here in this corner of the planet, I am the only one. I've been saying that I deserve statues, but so far, no one–

Shaun: I think so.

Victoria: At least I get a Victoria Day long weekend.

Shaun: Exactly. Dedicated just to you.

Victoria: Just me.

Shaun: I love that. No, I think that's amazing, because when you think about home inspectors, I've seen a lot of them, and none of them are like you. I always wonder, what does it take to become a home inspector? You've got 25 years of experience in the construction industry, which is an amazing accomplishment there. To go from just working in construction to becoming a home inspector, what does that take in Canada?

Victoria: It's different depending where you live. BC and Alberta are the only two provinces where a license is required to call yourself a home inspector. We are licensed under Consumer Protection BC. We have to uphold certain standards, including the amounts of insurance for errors and omissions that we carry. We have standards that we have to adhere to for report writing.

Basically, it comes down to about a year and a half of training that we have to take, which includes 50 to 100 hours of field training and then courses in absolutely every part of a home that you could imagine, which I thought I would know more about having owned and operated a construction company for residential homes for years. Then you realize that you sub a lot of stuff out. I had to learn everything about electrical, plumbing, roofing, foundations, exterior cladding. You name it. I had to learn it.

Shaun: Right. Before, when you were running your company, tell me about that transition. What were your priorities when you were running this company? Then how has that shifted to becoming an actual inspector?

Victoria: We were, I don't want to say, perfectionists, but those were the standards that we aimed for.

Shaun: That's good.

Victoria: Yes, it's impossible to achieve, but you always want to do your best. I always like to explain to people that there's building code and then there's best practices. Building code is the bare minimum you're allowed to get away with, and best practices are best practices. There's better ways of doing things that will make your value better. It'll last longer. It'll look nicer.

Shaun: That's going above and beyond.

Victoria: Yes, and that's what we did. Now that I'm a home inspector, that's also what I adhere to: going above and beyond.

Shaun: It sounds like you come with that built-in set of values, that certain level of expertise that you put upon yourself. Are all inspectors like that, or do you think that that is something that you bring uniquely to what you do now?

Victoria: I highly doubt that every inspector is like that, and I'm sure I'm not the only person that is like that. It's a personality thing. I am a firm believer in "Don't bother. No half-assing. If you're going to go in, you do your best and try your hardest at everything.” That's how I run my business.

Shaun: Right. That's amazing. When I heard all of the things that you had to learn, I'm sure you were great at administrative, and you understood broadly about construction and home-building, and all the permitting and all the rest. Of all those skills now that you had to learn and now that you're an inspector, what were your favorite, what were your most challenging to digest and understand, and where do you like to put yourself? Are you an expert in any one of those things?

Victoria: I am not an expert in any one of those things. I like to explain that I am like a GP, your doctor. You're going to go to your doctor for broad-stroke things. They're going to say, "Yes, that's something wrong with you, but you need a specialist." That's what I will do, too. I will come in and say, "Oh, boy, this electrical panel is a mess. This shouldn't be this way. This shouldn't be that way. You absolutely need to speak to an electrician about how to move forward with this."

Shaun: As a general practitioner, are there some of the skills that you really enjoy just as a person, as Victoria, like digging into and wanting to learn more about? I know generally you have to know everything, but where are your favorites?

Victoria: This is going to sound odd, but I would say people management skills are my favorite. I really love working with my clients. I love learning. I don't appreciate school as much. The value of learning, I absolutely love, learning new and interesting things. I just try and keep on top of what's happening, like things that maybe other inspectors don't know.

It's not as much a fact as me keeping in contact with insurance brokers and finding out what's coming down the pipe for insurance companies, being able to tell my client things like that. "They might not cover you in the near future for this. This is what I've heard. It shouldn't affect what you're doing right this second, but just know it might affect you in the future."

Shaun: Victoria, when you're talking about people management, human beings, they're very hard to manage. Who are you talking about? Are you talking about clients? Are you talking about builders? Tell me more about that, like which people?

Victoria: In my past, I have been the manager for my son's hockey team for many years. Quite frankly, managing the parents was much harder than managing the team itself.

Shaun: Hockey parents, yes, they can be a bit much.

Victoria: Yes, especially when it's a house. I actually love helping my clients, making them feel really comfortable, making them know that somebody's in their corner, no matter when. I will answer questions before I do the inspection. I will answer questions during the inspection. I will answer questions a year after. Years after the inspections, I'm there.

Shaun: Even after?

Victoria: Oh, yes, absolutely.

Shaun: How so?

Victoria: If somebody wants to call me up 10 years from now and say, "Listen, that house that you inspected, I don't know if you remember, had this, and now this is happening," I'm happy to walk them through any questions that they might need answered to figure out what to do about it. If it's a completely different house, I'm still happy to answer questions.

If they've got a water stain on your ceiling, I can help them figure out, "Could it be coming from a bathroom upstairs? Could it be coming from the roof?" by just asking the right questions so that they are able to figure out who they need to call. Do they need to call a plumber? Do they need to call a roofer? I always tell people that I am happy to answer questions from my couch till the cows come home. The second I have to leave to go to site, that's when I charge you.

Shaun: Right. You mentioned about managing your son's hockey team. You have a son. You're a mama bear. It sounds very much like the instincts of a mama bear with everything you do, because you're taking care of everybody that you come in contact with.

Victoria: It is. It really is. I also love inspiring people. I just want to make people feel really good about what they're doing.

Shaun: I love that. Oh my gosh, that warms my heart. At REAL TIME, we want to warm people's heart on REAL TIME as well. That's so great to know that that is a home inspector, because I've had home inspectors and examples of things where I walked away. Look, it's a very tense situation sometimes. You have an inspector. Either they're walking through a house that you're about to buy. You're like, "Oh, what are they going to find?"

I just sold my house in LA, and we didn't do any kind of pre-inspection before we listed, which, looking back now, is probably a mistake. They were walking through, and they found stuff that I could not have even imagined, and it's quite something. The fact that what you bring is this idea of caring and compassion to the whole process, that sounds like an amazing thing. Good on you.

Victoria: Thank you.

Shaun: In terms of the inspector's relationship with REALTORS^®, what do inspectors bring to REALTORS^®? What value do inspectors bring to REALTORS^® and buyers, and sellers? Specifically, let's start with REALTORS^®.

Victoria: Well, we are definitely a buffer, so they can actually not be the person that's on the hook if something goes terribly wrong. Number two, we are the people there that have the answers to all of these questions about the home that a REALTOR^® might not have or know, but needs to know for their client's best interest. When you mentioned earlier about the pre-listing inspection, I do those for REALTORS^® as well, who pay me themselves to come and look at a home before they put it on the market so that they are fully educated on what is going on with the house so that when other inspectors show up on behalf of clients who might be purchasing the house, they're not going to find any surprises and have to renegotiate price and stuff like that.

If they already know that the house needs a new roof or there's a crack in the foundation, they can price it accordingly. They can tell potential buyers, "Listen, this is the lay of the land. I'm aware. The price is according. Take it or leave it."

Shaun: Would you say it's in a REALTOR^®'s best interest to go that extra mile, pay for that pre-inspection, or is that usually on the buyer or seller?

Victoria: Honestly, it really depends on the state of the market. When it is crazy here in Vancouver and people are throwing multiple, like 13 offers at a home and putting more money than it's being asked for, there's really no point in doing an inspection beforehand because it's not going to affect anything at all. When the market is normal and stabilized, then it's very beneficial. I actually worked for a REALTOR^® who I found a leak, and I discovered it was going through all three levels of the home.

Shaun: Ooh, water.

Victoria: They had made arrangements to have it fixed, but they were already aware that the ceiling in the bottom bathroom was completely waterlogged, and you can see it's stained. They made that known to the potential buyers. The potential buyers had a home inspector come in, who ended up punching a hole through the entire roof or ceiling.

Shaun: Did it just gush out? Was there water up there standing?

Victoria: No, because it had already been stopped-

Shaun: Oh, I see.

Victoria: -but they hadn't fixed the drywall yet.

Shaun: Right.

Victoria: That inspector ended up being on the hook because it was already a latent defect that had been established and mentioned, and he didn't take undue care in dealing with it. My REALTOR^® was off the hook, having to redrywall.

Shaun: Oh, that's good. When you talk about water, talk about drywall, when you're looking at a house, you're walking through, take me through a checklist of some of the things that you look for. Are they in any particular order, or how do you operate that way? What are the items you're looking for?

Victoria: Well, most inspectors that I know have a system. I always start on the outside of the house. I always go one way around the house and then go the other way around the house, because sometimes you miss things that are at different angles.

Shaun: Yes. What are you looking for? What are you looking for? What's the thing you're looking for on the outside of the house?

Victoria: Well, in here, the Wet Coast, I am looking for water damage, pretty much exclusively, or potential things that could allow water ingress to happen. There are so many of them, and most of them are quite easy to fix for a few bucks and prevent a huge catastrophe of expenses. I love to point all of these little things out that you're going to find on pretty much any home, whether it's new or a hundred years old.

Then, of course, I'm looking for existing damage, any water stains, especially on stucco. We had the whole leaky condo crisis out here in the '80s because all the developers started building in the California style of stucco and no overhangs. That was a disaster because there was different codes back then. We didn't have to have a rainscreen. Now we are required to have water be able to escape if it does get back behind the exterior cladding of a house. That makes a huge difference. I'm looking at all different eras of housing and looking for problems like that, up to the roof. I look at that.

Shaun: Are you climbing up on the roof, or are you droning it nowadays?

Victoria: My insurance doesn't cover drones, actually, ironically enough, but no, I go on the roof. There's exceptions. If it's a really steep pitch, I'm not going to go on it. If it's three stories in the air, I'm also not going to go on it. I will do whatever I can to get as close to it as possible. I have binoculars. I will look down on roofs from upper stories. There's lots of ways of going around it. For me, the very last place I go is generally the attic, and that is the best place, in my opinion, to see what's going on with the roof because you can see any water that's coming in there.

Shaun: It's all about water. We need it, but we don't love it in houses.

Victoria: No. No. Water is the enemy.

Shaun: Water is the enemy. That's awesome. You're looking at the roof. You're looking at outside, water damage, potential Band-Aids. How do you control your emotions when you're walking around the house, and you look down and you see somebody who, obviously, they were like, "Dude, we got to finish this build. Let's just patch it up with X, Y, and Z and get out of here." How many times do you see that?

Victoria: I see it a lot, actually, especially on new builds. There's a product called Dimple Mat, and it goes on the exterior of foundations. It prevents water pressure from building up against the concrete foundation. Concrete's porous. It absorbs water, albeit more slowly than other products. This is one of the ways of preventing that from happening. However, it is supposed to be buried. You're not allowed to see it because the building product manufacturers, none of them that I know of, allow for it to be exposed to UV for longer than six months.

Some of them are shorter. That includes the time it's sitting on site waiting to be installed. It just degrades really, really quickly, and it cracks. Then you have something that's going to hold water against your foundation when it funnels down into there. I see that all the time. I've actually been on site arguing with a builder about it, who's trying to tell my clients that, "No, no, the city of Vancouver told me I had to have this exposed." I'm like, "Sorry, brother, but I just built a house several years ago, like three blocks from here, and I can tell you they did not require me to do that."

Shaun: Right. Wow, that must be challenging, especially when you're in front of the client. Do you generally pull the builder aside? You have to, I guess, right?

Victoria: I don't. I don't pull them aside. I'm one of those people that will state my point and not explicitly argue the fact after that. You can take it or leave it. "This is what I have to say on it." Then I will speak to my clients later when they're not around. In that case, I actually went and researched these building products, that specific one, because you can see the name on it, and sent them like, "Here's what they have to say about this."

Shaun: Well, that's great.

Victoria: Which is above and beyond what I need to do as a home inspector, but they need to know this.

Shaun: You're a mama bird. You're a mama bird. You got to do this. I love it. Then take me inside. What are you doing inside? Talk to me through the inside of the house.

Victoria: I would also like to state on the outside that, especially here, where we have a lot of slopes and hills, the way that the landscaping directs water towards or away the house is very, very important. I'm always commenting on that also.

Shaun: Nice.

Victoria: Inside the house, I tend to walk in the front door and go counterclockwise to all of the rooms on that level, one at a time. I check all the electrical. I should say I don't do any invasive testing, so I'm not opening up any walls. I do open up panels if they're not painted shut. Electrical panels, I do open if they're painted shut. I have an X-ACTO knife for that. Yes, I check all exposed plumbing.

Technically, I tell people that I don't do appliances because I don't want to be on the hook for a Wolf range that's thousands and thousands of dollars, and I'm only charging a few hundred to do an inspection. I do check sort of for appliances. I make sure that all the water appliances are not leaking. I make sure that everything turns on and off and functions properly. I do run the dishwasher, and I run the washing machine and dryer just to make sure that's all good. I run every faucet that you could possibly find in a home. I check all of the outlets. I have a little special tool that I can stick inside each receptacle and make sure it's wired correctly.

Shaun: That's cool. Yes, no, it sounds pretty extensive and par for the course. In terms of when you're going through with a client, some of this stuff can be very complicated and confusing. "Yes, we need a TR73 over here. You're missing some sump pumps that need some extra XR7s." You know what I mean? I'm like, "Oh, that doesn't sound good. Is that something I should worry about?" How technical are you with these conversations? Tell me how you communicate with your clients about that.

Victoria: Industry jargon is an absolute no-no. You never want to come across as talking down to people. There's no point in telling them something they don't understand. I really try and give my clients information in a way that is easy to understand and not condescending. There's no mansplaining from me. I want my clients to feel really comfortable and ask questions. So many clients feel like they're not going to ask a question because they feel like it's a stupid question, and they don't want to feel stupid. Nobody does. There is no stupid questions. I really want my clients to feel that. There's no stupid questions except the questions you don't ask. That's what I'm here for. I'm here to answer questions.

Shaun: That's great.

Victoria: That's actually a running theme on my Google Reviews is how great I was at explaining things. The example that I often use is GFCIs. GFCIs are Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters. They are the little receptacles that you find very often in your bathroom that have the button that you can push to test and reset. When I say, "Your kitchen needs GFCIs," people will look at me like, "What?"

I always ask, "Okay, so your kitchen here needs a GFCI. Do you know what a GFCI is?" 99% of the time, they're like, "No," and I'll explain, "Okay, so do you have this in your bathroom of your house where you currently live?" They all say, "Yes." I say, "Okay, that's a ground fault circuit interrupter. What it does is if it is required anywhere close to within about six feet of a water source, what it does is if you happen to be in contact with anything wet while you're holding an appliance and using it, if there's a short in the appliance and you don't have this protection in place, you will become electrocuted, and you could possibly die.

If you do have these protections in there, it will sense that surge and instantly shut down. You will have a new hairdo and you will hurt for a moment, but you will be completely fine otherwise." Putting that element of comedy in there makes people feel more comfortable, and yet at the same time, now they 100% understand what I'm saying.

Shaun: Right. That's how you explain it to them. You use humor. It breaks down barriers. I know this from making a living in doing this. It does work. I think that's really, really great, especially in those, it's high-stress situations. "What's wrong with my house?" or "What's wrong with this house I'm about to buy?" In terms of you working with REALTORS^®, this is the portion of the podcast that I like to call misconceptions about inspections. What are some big misconceptions about inspections that either REALTORS^® have or even the buyers and sellers?

Victoria: I don't think REALTORS^®– I'm not sure about the rest of Canada, where it might be very different, the scope of what you get from each inspector. Here, I think they're very educated. They know exactly what to expect. There's no surprises there.

Shaun: Got you.

Victoria: Clients very often don't have any idea what to expect. I have a very, very thorough contract that I give to them that explains, in detail, every exact thing that I do or don't do. People don't generally read it.

Shaun: Yes, I was going to say it's a great thing to read. "Yes, I'm going to spend some time with this contract while my two kids are burning toast and flipping and painting the wall that shouldn't be painted. Let me just take some time to read some legal jargon." How do you manage those expectations?

Victoria: A lot of the time, when people are shopping for inspectors, that's when they ask questions about what I do or don't do. I have to make it very clear that I do not do invasive testing. I am not going to be cutting a hole in your wall to see if there's mold behind it. I don't do mold testing. I don't do asbestos testing. I do everything else around it. I will point out things that could possibly contain asbestos or are evidence of possible mold problems, or could cause possible mold problems.

I will tell you what to do about that. I will tell you how to prevent it from happening in the future. I will send you to a specialist because you have to be licensed now to do mold testing and to do asbestos testing.

Shaun: Right. It sounds like your approach of saying straight up front, "I'm a general practitioner," do you use that as the introduction to things? Because I think that would be very helpful for me anyways. If I heard that right out of the gates, then I know my expectation of what this whole process is going to be like.

Victoria: Yes, that's very true. I really have to explain to people like, "I know a lot about everything; I don't know everything about anything."

Shaun: Right. Yes, I think that's fair. It is nice to have that inspector come in for that first pass, generally speaking. Talk to me about "When do inspections take place in relation to offers closing?" When do inspections take place? Is there some limited time frame that they have to take place in?

Victoria: It really depends. I do inspections for people before they put offers in, just so they can go in subject-free. I do inspections for people after they put offers in. I do inspections for people before they list a house. I do inspections for people that have lived in a house for years and would just like to know what's going on with their house. I do inspections for people that are doing occupancy walkthroughs for their new builds or condos. Yes, I do the same inspection all the time. It's just called something else whenever I do it. It's the time that changes the name, not the actual inspection itself.

Shaun: Yes. You have your "This is what we do. This is the inspection. When and for what purpose is the difference between the two?

Victoria: Exactly?

Shaun: Okay, so then tell me about– you mentioned new construction. I would imagine that you don't really need too much of an inspection for new construction. Is that a misconception of inspections?

Victoria: Thank you for asking, Shaun. That is a huge misconception.

Shaun: Really?

Victoria: Huge, yes. I find some of the worst things on new builds. Very often, it could be a less-than-reputable builder, but very often, it just comes down to the fact that there's huge trade shortages here right now. There's not enough people to do the work. Very often, someone that doesn't know what they're doing entirely and isn't the best at their job comes in and does things. I find less-than-optimal work frequently.

Shaun: I see. Do you think that's because of strictly that, "Oh, these guys are unskilled or girls," or is it also a thing of just shifting standards and changing technologies, et cetera?

Victoria: I think it's a little bit of everything, but I did read an article a while back that was talking about how the trades industry is really suffering all across the gamut of different trades because you've had these older gentlemen, and I will say gentlemen because they were all older gentlemen, who were passing their knowledge down to the people underneath them as they were training them.

The whole baby boomer generation is retiring and getting out of business. That has collapsed the number of people with this knowledge down to a lower level of fewer people that know this knowledge. Fewer people are able to send this knowledge off to fewer people. It's just going downwards.

Shaun: Sure. In terms of the standards that people are using now, as builders go, have you felt–

Victoria: The standards have gone up because of code.

Shaun: The standards have gone up. Right.

Victoria: Yes, but that doesn't mean that the work doing them has gone up.

Shaun: I see.

Victoria: Everybody's overworked, too, including municipal inspectors.

Shaun: Right. You are one of how many, would you say, in the Lower Mainland, speaking of overworked, et cetera?

Victoria: How many inspectors there are?

Shaun: Yes, I was curious about in your immediate, in your district, in your region, how many inspectors are there?

Victoria: There's hundreds. I honestly don't know, but I do know that I just heard the other day there was 400 and something in the province. I would have to guess that the majority of them are in the Lower Mainland.

Shaun: Yes. Being in a place like Urban Vancouver and area, I would imagine there's a higher density, but you, as a person, do you think that that is the best place to be? Are there more opportunities as an inspector in suburban and even rural areas? This is just like a side question that I'm curious about.

Victoria: I would say that there's no chance I'm moving anywhere else. I love it here. I feel like I could go somewhere else in Canada and probably do really well. In rural areas, there's fewer. There's also a whole different set of things to deal with that I am not prepared to deal with. For example, septic fields. I don't touch septic fields.

Shaun: Why not?

Victoria: I have no need to, really.

Shaun: It's the best.

Victoria: I don't come across them very often. Once you go out far enough into farmland, you will find them on a regular basis. If you go over to Vancouver Island, you will find them on a regular basis. It's just not something that I need to know. I focus on things I do need to know.

Shaun: Right. Talk to me a bit about warranties, because I know that's something with CMHC, two, five, and 10-year warranties. What do and how do inspectors help identify those things that need to stay in place for the warranty to–

Victoria: The two, five, 10 warranty is two years on materials, five years on building envelope, and 10 years on structure. Your builder is required to fix things. When I come in, initially, I will present my report to my clients, and they will have a list of things on a new build that they can send off to their developer and a checklist for him. "Here, you need to address these things."

It's also a really great idea to have an inspection done before the anniversary dates come, so before the two-year mark, before the five-year mark, and before the 10-year mark, so that if there is anything that you want to make a claim, you have the opportunity to do that. You don't want to find out something the day after the warranty expires, and you're completely unable to do anything about it. Inspections aren't expensive. It's worth every penny to have somebody come in and do this.

Shaun: For example, what would be something that maybe you'd find in a new construction that can void the warranty?

Victoria: Well, nothing's going to void the warranty, but if it's a building envelope thing, that encompasses the roof, it encompasses the windows, the doors, the exterior, anything going into the house. Being as water is the enemy, you want to find out if there's any leakage or anything that has been installed incorrectly that is causing leakage or anything of that manner. Having somebody come in and check that for you is a no-brainer, in my mind.

Shaun: A rusty electric panel?

Victoria: Yes, it was a new build that I found an electrical issue with the rusty panel. It was in a brand-new, beautiful condo that was a high-rise. It was right on one of the mid-floors, and there was no power to one of the bedrooms. When I opened up the electrical panel, I found out why. Because it had switched off, out of safety reasons, because there was a leak coming from somewhere into the electrical panel.

It was all rusty. It's amazing that only that one circuit breaker had actually tripped. The problem with this is that my clients had already purchased this. It was pre-bought before it was built. They just wanted me to come in and do an inspection. I did and found this. Because the water's in there, damaging the electrical panel, they cannot live there until it's fixed.

You cannot fix it until you figure out the source of the leak. It could be plumbing from the floor above. It could be from any floor above. It could be from the roof coming down, just from gravity. It's a big deal because having to figure that out could take a while.

Shaun: Yes, and is that on the developer to find these answers?

Victoria: Yes, it would be on the developer. Unfortunately for my clients, it's on the developer, but they're just required to fix it. There's no time frame.

Shaun: I see. That can be really frustrating for a buyer.

Victoria: Yes.

Shaun: Oh, wow, man, that's something there. I don't know how I'd handle that. The key is that you found it. That's really, really great.

Victoria: I did. I wouldn't want them to have been living there and all of a sudden have this happen to them. It's very dangerous.

Shaun: I'm about to sell my house, and I know I've got some issues, but are DIY fixes probably going to cut it?

Victoria: It depends what it is. If you want to patch a hole in your own drywall, be my guest. It might not look pretty, but it's not going to be a safety concern.

Shaun: Right.

Victoria: If it's electrical or plumbing, chances are that you are not going to be covered under insurance if anything happens.

Shaun: Right.

Victoria: That's actually one of the things that I look for a lot because there's a lot of people, not so many anymore, but there have been in the past, people that consider themselves handy, and they will do electrical fixes or all kinds of things that are safety concerns that they might not even be aware of or tenants, tenants especially. If you're a landlord and you have tenants, tenants seem to very often not want their rent raised for some crazy reason.

They will, very often, fix things themselves so that they're not bothering the landlord. The landlord might not even be aware that this person has done some electrical thing that's going to burn down the house and void insurance. It's good to have me come in for that kind of thing, too.

Shaun: Humans are quirky birds.

Victoria: We are.

Shaun: Victoria, tell me also, what are some other things that are like hidden things that you tend to look for?

Victoria: Well, I wouldn't say hidden things, but there's a bunch of things that I try to educate my clients on and REALTORS^® on that they can look for before they pay me to come in. These are things like, this is the most common thing that I'm finding now, full electrical panels. It's not a safety concern, but very pre-'90s buildings were built before our obsession with electronics.

Anything built before then likely isn't going to be able to carry the load. How many of us have lived in pre-'90s homes and had multiple power bars plugged into electrical outlets? Newer ones will have far more electrical outlets on far more breakers in a panel.

Shaun: Sorry. When you say a full electrical panel, tell me about that. What do you mean by a full electrical panel?

Victoria: Full electrical panel means that there is no more empty slots for breakers in the panel. It is chock-a-block full. You cannot add anything more, which means that if you want to put in an EV charger, which is very, very common here in BC, if you want to put in a suite or put in the GFCIs that I spoke about, or AFCIs, which are arc fault interrupters, they're also safety things, you are not going to be able to do that.

Shaun: Do they need to bring a whole added service, like going from a 200 amp or bringing in a 200 amp, or bringing in a–

Victoria: What I would do in this case is I would pull my general practitioner card and say, "You need an electrician to look at that and see what their advice is." Because you might be able to just put in a bigger panel that has more space in it, but you might also need to upgrade to a larger amp, a 200 amp. It depends on what the load is. That's something an electrician can come in and test for.

That's something that you can look at and see yourself without having to open up the actual panel cover yourself. If you're shopping for a home and you're doing a walkthrough, ask where the electrical panel is. Go look at it.

Shaun: Have a look at it.

Victoria: See if it's full.

Shaun: Now, is that something that you would share with your REALTORS^®? Is that something REALTORS^® should also inform their clients about?

Victoria: Definitely.

Shaun: Yes. It sounds like, too, that would be more in older homes that you might come across this. Tell me about some other things that you may come across or that a buyer or seller should look into before even bringing in an inspector. Especially on the older home side, what things are you seeing now? Because technologies are changing, codes are changing, but there have been houses that have been around for hundreds of years.

Victoria: Yes. If any client has worked with me before, they will get these things learned, and they will know to look for them before they even have to call me for inspection. One of them is, if there's a suite in it, check with the municipality and make sure it's a legal suite. Make sure that any work that has been done to an older home, upgrades have been permitted and closed. Anyone can pull a permit. You need an inspector to sign off on it in order for it to be a closed permit.

That's something you can do for free. Also, depending on when it was, checking for polybutylene piping. That is the very first generation of plastic piping that was put into homes. It was done because the price of copper went through the roof in the '70s. They invented plastic piping, which was a godsend because not only was it cheaper to manufacture, it was also cheaper to install because you didn't have to do and solder an elbow at every single place you wanted to bend the pipe.

You could just bend the pipe to a certain extent, so it's so much faster to install. Then they discovered that it had major problems with corroding from the inside out and leaking. It became one of the largest class action lawsuits in the history of the United States. Being that the United States is so litigious, that was actually saying something. Insurance companies don't want to cover you if you have this. It has a very unique look.

It's difficult to find because most places around here, everything is behind the walls, but there are certain places that you can poke your nose into to have a look for it. I always teach my REALTORS^® and my clients where to look for that.

Shaun: What's the difference between PVC and polybutylene?

Victoria: PVC is hard, white plastic. That's the plastic that you very often see for drainage around the exterior, your perimeter drainage. It's hard and white, usually, sometimes black. Polybutylene is gray and has blue writing on it most of the time, and is softer. It's not rigid.

Shaun: I see. Good to know. These are good little details. When I say unfinished basements, how do you react?

Victoria: I love unfinished basements. They're my favorite.

Shaun: Why?

Victoria: Because I can actually see everything.

Shaun: Ah, yes, right.

Victoria: Piping's exposed. Electrical's exposed, foundation's exposed, all of these things that are usually hidden from view. I very often have to write in as a limitation to cover my ass in my reports, "I could not see the foundation." This is how much, generally, I put in. "I could only see 95% of the foundation." I can't be held responsible for anything hidden behind that beautiful, drywall of the lovely basement suite.

Shaun: Right. Tell me about pigtailing. My producer told me about pigtailing. This is generally a family-level podcast. What's pigtailing?

Victoria: Pigtailing, we'll go back to the '70s when copper prices went through the roof. It was so expensive to use copper wiring that everybody changed to aluminum wiring because it was far less inexpensive. Aluminum wiring was great for two seconds until they realized that it actually expands and contracts at a much higher rate than copper does, which means it moves more, which means that every connection where it is joined to a wall switch or an outlet, or a light in your ceiling or in the electrical panel, there's many, many joints of wiring, and all of them would expand and contract and just loosen, and then they're loose.

Then you have arcing, which is an electrical fire concern. Insurance companies do not want you to have this in your house. Most of them will flat out refuse to cover you if you have aluminum wiring, and that, I should say, single-strand aluminum wiring.

Shaun: Right, I knew that.

Victoria: That is where there's one wire.

Shaun: I knew that.

Victoria: Because once you get up to a higher gauge of wire that takes more power, like the service that comes into your house, that is multi-strand, and that can be copper or aluminum. If it's either, it's completely fine. There's no issues at all with the multi-strand because it is not connected to each other in the same way.

Shaun: I see.

Victoria: Just to be clear. People, don't panic if you have aluminum wiring in your home. It's only if you have single-strand aluminum wiring, which is the one wire.

Shaun: Where does the pigtailing come in?

Victoria: Insurance companies would refuse to cover people unless they completely rewired their entire home.

Shaun: Oh, come on.

Victoria: Which is outrageously expensive.

Shaun: Not doing it.

Victoria: There was a go-between where everybody made everybody happy, for a while. Some insurance companies don't even want to cover you for this anymore, but most of them will. What it is is you just have an electrician come in, and they will attach a tiny piece of copper wiring to the ends of every single piece of aluminum wiring and then have that attached to your receptacle, your switch. They're joined together, twisted, and then they have a little plastic mirette cap on top, and it's fine.

Shaun: Pigtail.

Victoria: They base that on pricing of how many you have.

Shaun: Got you.

Shaun: It is a lot cheaper than rewiring your home.

Shaun: Way cheaper.

Victoria: Unless you have an unfinished basement, in which case that makes rewiring anything much, much easier. Also makes re-plumbing for polybutylene piping much, much easier.

Shaun: Right. I remember my house in Newfoundland. I went there and the hot water tank. Talk to me about hot water tanks. Mine was expired.

Victoria: I actually had a hot water tank that went after five months and one day. Then I thought, "Well, that's weird. Why isn't it covered under warranty?" Then I found out, when I became a home inspector, they really don't last for very long. It also depends where you live, how long it lasts. Here in the Lower Mainland, we have amazing water. It's full of minerals. It's really great for our health, but it's not great for our piping.

Copper doesn't last as long here as it lasts everywhere else. It's also not great for our hot water tanks. They only last between eight to 12 years on average here. That's the life expectancy. Insurance companies generally don't want to cover you for damage caused if it is over 10 years old. That's something that's very important to know for my clients. How old is the hot water tank? The seller will always say, "Oh, it's new."

Shaun: "It's fine."

Victoria: We just replaced it eight years ago. That's all perception. What one person considers new is not what insurance companies consider new.

Shaun: Yes, and I had an HVAC system that when we moved in 10 years ago, the inspector was like, "This is on the end of its life." It took us all the way through to the time we sold it. Yes, we gave them credit for that one because she was making some noise by the end of it. She was wheezing. She had bad emphysema. She had some kind of ailment for sure.

Victoria: Very often, you can see that there's issues with it. I'm going to be telling my client, "Okay, this is 10 years old. It's reached its average life expectancy. Your insurance company might have issues with it, but there's no rust. There's no leaking. It looks in good shape." The signs that you often see on a hot water tank that's not happy is not there.

Shaun: Right. What are the consequences if you miss any of these?

Victoria: I'm terrified of missing things because you can be sued, which is another reason why I'm a great buffer in between REALTORS^® and homeowners. I have insurance. I've never had to use it, thankfully. Not just for me personally, business-wise, I would be mortified if a client came back to me and was like, "Yes, we found this huge thing that you missed." All my business is word of mouth, so that would just kill me.

Shaun: All it takes is one, right?

Victoria: It's going to end up costing them lots and lots of money, and that's what I'm here for: to prevent them from having to spend lots and lots of money. My passion is educating my clients on little fixes that can improve so they don't have to pay thousands of dollars. If I was to miss something significant, I would lose sleep over that, for sure.

Shaun: A good inspection really serves a lot of purposes, right? It serves protecting the client. There's safety. There's saving money. Am I missing anything?

Victoria: No, I'd say that's one of the things that makes me stand out as an inspector, is that it is my passion to educate my clients on small fixes now, prevent expensive emergencies later. People are less and less handy nowadays. They know less and less about how a home works or how to fix things. My reports, I come in and I make sure they know, "Listen, I am going to find these same things pretty much on any home that you ask me to inspect, so don't panic.

"It doesn't mean it's a bad home. This is your go-to list of how to maintain this house without it being really expensive. Houses are so expensive. Home ownership is outrageous, especially here, and you can't afford this $50,000 surprise. Here's a $25 fix to help prevent that," and that's what I love doing is helping my clients understand these things.

Shaun: What would you say is the one thing or important message that you would have for REALTORS^® across Canada right now who are watching? What is the one thing from inspector to REALTOR^®, what would you like to say to them right now?

Victoria: Please get new builds inspected.

Shaun: Right, are people skipping new builds' inspections?

Victoria: Yes, they are, because it's a new build, and much is people are trusting. We all think the world's going to hell, but generally, deep down, we're all trusting, and if it's a new build, you just assume, "Okay, well, it's been inspected by the municipal inspectors. It's new. There shouldn't be anything wrong with it," and often there is.

Shaun: Victoria, this has been so incredibly insightful, not just for me as a buyer and seller, but I think for REALTORS^® as well. This is going to be very insightful to hear, and I think we need to start a GoFundMe to get your statue built in the Lower Mainland. Huge, big, strong Victoria statue, not in Victoria, on the Lower Mainland. What do you think?

Victoria: I am all over it. You go for it. It's one of the most worthy causes out there, for sure.

Shaun: I think so. I think so, and then I'll hire an inspector to make sure it's going to stay up forever. Thank you so much, Victoria. This has been such a great conversation.

Victoria: Thank you so much for having me. I loved it.

Shaun: All the best. Huge thank you to Victoria for her awesome knowledge and her cool stories. My takeaway from this whole conversation is that home inspectors are not just about finding things wrong with a house; as it turns out, they're a powerful tool to protect clients in this crazy buying and selling experience. It's really, really great to hear from Victoria, so a big thank you again to Victoria. That was awesome.

Guys, if you liked today's episode, be sure to go to your favorite podcast platform, like, subscribe, share this with as many people as you can. Of course, it's brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association, CREA, and produced by Alphabet^® Creative. My name is Shaun Majumder. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I know I did. We'll see you next time on REAL TIME.

Victoria: Shaun, you've got to have your mug handy.

Shaun: Oh, dude, they didn't send me one. I got to go get one.

Victoria: What?

Shaun: I want one with my face on it.

Victoria: What?

Shaun: I want my face now that I'm the host. I want to have REAL TIME.

Victoria: I want one with your face on it. You've a good face.

Shaun: It's got to go be super cheesy. It's got to go be.