Congratulations are in order on the new home you have found. Now you’re looking for a certified home inspector, and of course there are many from whom to choose here in Springfield, Missouri. a CLOSER look home inspections was founded with the philosophy that we are consultants whom you hire to evaluate and report on the condition of your property investment. We are not the house police and we do not pass or fail properties.

We provide our professional opinion on the real condition of a property.

This gives you the information that you need to make an informed decision on the purchase of your property. We think you’ll find our philosophy of doing business sets us apart from our competition. This starts at the basics of our services when we designed our inspections to provide you with all of the information that you need by clearly defining the difference between material defects and maintenance recommendations right in the report. This is an issue that you will have to understand when purchasing in Springfield Missouri due the GSBOR real estate contract. We go the extra mile to help ensure that you receive that information in a professional way, and follow-up with superior communication. Even after 5 years in the business, we are still leading our competition in information services offered to our clients!

You can read a little more from this article, “What is a home inspection?” or you may be interested in what a generalist opinion means to you.

Contact us at (417) 890-8500 if you would like to set up a home inspection today!

You may also be interested in our credentials to find out why our customers call us the best inspectors in Springfield, Missouri.

Quick side note – what does the efficiency really mean? Well is realistic terms, think of it as a dollar bill. If you buy $1 of gas and have a 60% efficient furnace, then 60 cents is heating your home and 40 cents in going out of the flue! This is a rough approximation, but is generally pretty accurate. So a 95% efficient furnace means that you lose only 5% of your houses heat out of the flue.

OK, so does that mean that old furnaces are bad? You would not believe how many times I hear this question asked by my customers. The answer is no. An old furnace is not bad because it is old. In a home inspection certain things are inspected on a furnace, but if they are operable with no major problems – then they are not a problem from a home inspectors point of view (Read our procedures for inspecting a gas furnace here). However, one of the best things you can do to lower your monthly gas bill in the wintertime is to upgrade an older (even perfectly functional) furnace to a high efficiency model. The savings in monthly gas usage usually pay the furnace off in about 5 years. However, in Springfield, MO in 2009 you could pay off the unit in only 2 years! Here’s how…

Let’s say you want to replace your 60% efficient, functional furnace with a new 95% efficient furnace. At this time, I will not talk about ductwork or an air conditioner (which will both be the topics of different posts). Let’s say I hire a company to do the work for $2,500, which includes the furnace and the installation. It will take $2,500 out of my pocket now to get the furnace replaced – so you need to be aware of that up front. None of the rebates offered anywhere lower the initial cost. Now that I have the furnace in place, let’s get our first rebate. Go to the rebate section of the city utilities website and download this form, and fill out the customer section. Give the form to the contractor you hired to install the system and have them fill out the contractor section of the form. After submitting the mail-in rebate, you will be eligible for $350 back from city utilities for a 95% efficient furnace installation (different efficiencies have different rebate amounts). The rebate comes within 3-5 weeks after the form is submitted.

Please note that the contractor must perform and submit a load analysis called a Manual J Load. Only use contractors qualified to perform this analysis. Additionally you will need to submit the invoice for the work showing the installation date and a GAMA certification (ask your contractor for this)

Well that’s $350 of the installation cost already paid for by city utilities (or your your percentage people – that’s 14%). Now let’s jump to tax day (Go Matt France) for another chunk of money. There is a Federal Tax Credit for Energy Efficiency in place to assist residential consumers with the cost of upgrading certain components of your home. Natural gas furnaces that are a minimum of 95% that are on this list qualify for the tax credit. The tax credit will allow you to reclaim 30% of your furnace (including installation) upgrade up to $1,500. So on April 15th, you will submit your receipts to your accountant and claim $750 as a tax credit (that’s 30% of $1,500). This is a true tax credit (not a deduction), so if you were going to get a $1,000 refund – now you would get a $1,750 refund.

At this point, I have recovered 44% of the initial installation expense without even running the furnace yet! Now I get to talk about therms and heating degree days – yippie! A therm is a normalized “amount” of fuel used to equate the expense of the fuel in terms of heating. This means I can calculate the cost of heating a home on any given day with wood, oil, propane or natural gas and see which is the cheapest. Anyway – city utilities calculates an average residential annual gas usage in therms – so we’re stuck with using it. OK, heating degree days is a representation of the number of hours per year the outside temperature is below 65 degreed Fahrenheit (divided by 24). This is the best way to determine the therms of heating needed to maintain a livable house.

Definitions out of the way – city utilities has recorded here that the average house in the Springfield, MO area uses 780 therms of natural gas per year. The cost was listed as $1.13/therm making the average annual cost of gas $883. Now some houses have gas water heaters, fireplaces and ovens that use that natural gas as well as the furnace, so I have to subtract that from the bill to find out what is costs to run just the furnace. I decided to use the Department of Energy’s numbers which account for this fact. You can view the chart on this webpage, but it says that upgrading from a 60% furnace to a 95% furnace will save you $37.80 per month per $100 of fuel spent. That’s 37.80% savings per year, which calculates to an annual bill reduction of $333.72.

At that rate of reduction in gas usage and saving 44% in the first year from rebates, the 95% efficient furnace will completely pay for itself in 3 years and 3 months. After that, you save $333.72 every year – forever! My opinion is that if you are buying a house to live in for at least three years and hte furnace is an older model – seriously consider replacing it with a 95% efficient model.

I went to Kelley Police & Tactical Supply on Sunshine (Map) to get another UltraStinger, but found the Stinger DS LED light instead. This flashlight does not have as many lumens output as the UltraStinger, but it is very bright. Also, it uses an LED light bulb, so the light is much more white as opposed to the very yellow cast of the UltraStinger’s halogen light. Here’s the best part, it is lighter, smaller, recharges faster, has a 7 hour continuous run time on a single charge, and the bulb has a 50,000 hour lifespan – all for around $100. I had a chance to try this one out in a crawlspace yesterday and I was very impressed. The light was very bright in a crawlspace and an attic, and I was able to see everything normally. I always found that the yellow light from the UltraStinger made termite mud tubes blend in with wood and other dark brown materials making it harder to detect. However, with the white light of the Stinger DS LED – I have no problems with contrast. I highly recommend this flashlight to any inspector.

You should remember to always get an inspection of your property after a storm like this, especially your roof. You will need this documentation from a a professional, like a certified home inspector, to give to your insurance agent for property damage claims. If you are not working with a property insurance agent at the moment, I would recommend giving Don Woodward at American Family Insurance a call to give you a quote.

If you would like to get a roof only inspection or exterior storm damage inspection, please call us at (417) 890-8500 to schedule today.

We have State of Missouri certified well inspectors

$60 | Water Analysis for Bacteria – This is the most common analysis for homes. We perform a visual inspection of the above ground well components and pressure equipment, and then take a sample of water in a sterile container. The sample should be taken from an exterior cold water valve only. The laboratory then tests the water for a class of enteric bacteria called coliforms. This test takes 24 hours to complete and if no bacteria show, then the sample is considered satisfactory for drinking. However, if bacteria do show, the growth is subjected to an additional 24 hours to determine if it is E. coli bacteria.

$120 | Water Analysis for Chemicals – This test is required for FHA and VA loans and includes taking a sample of water for testing lead, nitrate and nitrite concentrations.

Water tapped by a private well, is often of the highest quality. However, there are many sources of contaminants that can contribute to poor quality conditions. In many cases the homeowner isn’t aware of quality problems because they may increase slowly over time without noticeable change in taste or odor.

When buying a home with a private well, your home inspection should include a well system check up to ensure the well is in good working order and the quality of the water produced meets health standards.

We are familiar with the typical sources of contaminants in the Springfield and South Western Missouri area. Should your well inspection spot a problem we can make recommendations to mitigate contamination.

Our inspectors are Missouri licensed pest control applicators, however we do not apply chemicals and are not affiliated with any pest control company. We strive to give you a professional and unbiased insect infestation report.

Wood Destroying Infestation (WDI) Inspection – A thorough examination of all accessible areas of the house and surrounding area, including inspection for structural damage related to infestations – $50

Ant or termite, can you tell the difference?

Carpenter ants swarm just like termites. In fact, it’s very hard to tell them apart. Although carpenter ants bore and nest in wood, they don’t eat wood. Get this…they can actually eat termites! Either way, we can identify the difference and recommend the proper treatment.

Some interesting facts about Termites…

Workers represent the majority of the colony population and are responsible for caring for eggs, constructing and maintaining tunnels, foraging for food and feeding and grooming of other caste members. They are white and soft bodied.

Soldiers are responsible for defending the colony. They are white, soft bodied with an enlarged, hardened head containing two large jaws, or mandibles, which are used as a weapon against predators.

Winged reproductives produce the offspring in the colony and swarm at certain times of the year. Colonies can have both primary reproductives (one king and one queen), and hundreds of secondary reproductives to assist in egg laying and colony growth.

The King termite assists the queen in creating and attending to the colony during its initial formation. He will continue to mate throughout his life to help increase the colony size.

The Queen termite creates the colony by laying eggs and tending to the colony until enough workers and nymphs are produced to care for the colony. She can live for more than ten years and produce hundreds of eggs each year. Colonies can each several million termites with the help of secondary queens who also produce eggs.

Very little can be determined about the condition of your system without getting into the tank itself, which almost always requires digging. This is due to the large amount of stone in this area of the country. When septics fail in SW Missouri the sewage goes down into the rock – not up. Therefore we offer only invasive septic inspections.

Invasive Septic Inspection – State approved inspection requiring water system flush, internal tank inspection, sludge layer measurements and report – $150 *

* Price does not include site preparation, which is usually the responsibility of the seller in the Springfield, MO area. Tank access must be made available prior to the inspector’s arrival. Pumping ports will not provide the required access to most tanks. Tank cover removal is necessary.

Septic Myths

You don’t have to pump your tank unless there’s something wrong with it.

Sludge is formed by the natural action of bacteria digestion within the tank. As sludge layers build up there is less room in the tank for the bacteria to work. Tanks should be checked and pumped periodically to ensure the most efficient system.

I’ve been in this house for 20 years, the tank has never been pumped and the system works fine.

Either there is a leak in the system or no room left in the tank due to sludge, and effluent is pouring through directly to the leach field without treatment. This condition can be nearly impossible to detect without an invasive inspection.

The tank pumping port is good enough access to inspect, so we don’t have to dig.

It is rare that the pumping port is wide enough to allow a State Certified inspection. Many modern systems have a green domed lid that is roughly 2 feet in diameter for inspection access. If your tank has this lid, you will not need to dig anything, as we can unscrew the lid to gain inspection access to the tank.

We can fix it by putting additives down the system.

So far, according to the State of Missouri, no additive has been proven effective in a controlled scientific study. Many company’s make claims that their additives work, and may even be able to provide you with a brochure that says they have been laboratory tested and proven, but it has not been recognized by the State of Missouri.

The #1 naturally occurring cause of lung cancer in America!

Radon Gas Inspections – $125
2 detectors are placed in the lowest living level of the home.

Minimum test length is 48 hours, however we prefer 72 hours. The home should be closed for 12 hours before the start of the test, as in winter use. Doors can be opened for normal access but closed immediately. The laboratory requires 1 business day after the detectors are received to provide results.

We use EPA certified laboratories and state-of-the-art equipment

This ensures accurate and reliable test results. Springfield is very inconsistent with respect to radon gas test results. EPA figures are derived from averaging all tests collected from this area, which is no guarantee for a specific property. There are sections of Springfield that consistently measure in the 12’s and above, which is 3 times the high limit*. This is why a CLOSER look home inspections highly recommends testing every property for the presence of radon gas. You can read an article about how radon can affect you on our blog.

High Risk >4 pCi/L*
Moderate 2-4 pCi/L
Low Risk <2 pCi/L

*4 pico-curries per liter is the EPA limit

Image source The US Environmental Protection Agency

Radon gas can be reduced to below 4 pCi/L

for about $1,000 to $1,500 on average

Even in some of the worst cases the procedure is simple. It’s about the same as installing a sump pump for water removal. A 3.5″ hole is drilled into the foundation slab (on basement and slab homes) and a 3″ PVC pipe is placed into the hole and sealed. This pipe extends either inside the house into the attic or is routed to the exterior. Either in the attic or on the outside, a special radon mitigation fan is installed which will run 24 hours a day (don’t worry – they are very quite). Then the pipe is extended past up to the roof line on the outside or through the roof from the attic. What happens then is that when radon gas percolates up from the ground under the slab of the house – the fan sucks it through the gravel layer directly under the slab, through the pipe and out of the house. Radon remediation systems are rarely more complicated than this, but there are other types available for certain property construction issues.

More information can be accessed at:

http://www.epa.gov/radon

We understand molds, spores and organisms that could interfere with your air quality. Just because someone finds some fuzzy stuff in your crawlspace doesn’t mean you should panic. Mold is in our air, everywhere. Just leave some bread out on the counter for a few days! The important information is the type and amount of spores in the habitable areas of the house.

We provide 2 levels of mold inspection service:

Mold Risk Assessment – Investigation and report of potential mold risks

BY ITSELF OR WITH BASIC HOME INSPECTION – $175

WITH PREMIER HOME INSPECTION – FREE!

Mold Analysis – As above, including air sampling, specimen sampling and laboratory analysis

BY ITSELF OR WITH BASIC HOME INSPECTION – $350

WITH PREMIER HOME INSPECTION – $300

We use state-of-the-art equipment and certified labs to ensure reliable results

a CLOSER look home inspections – (417) 890-8500

Call to set up your inspection today!