Here we answer questions about getting a home inspection, give tips on home maintenance, and share our knowledge about common home issues. We are here to help you. If you can’t find an answer to your questions here, you can always contact us via our contact page.
You close the bedroom door, turn the knob, and feel it catch near the top of the frame. Maybe the back door has started rubbing, too, or the latch no longer lines up with the strike plate. In a home around Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Columbia, or anywhere across the Mid-South,
You step onto the front walk on a cool morning, coffee in hand, and notice a stair-step crack climbing through the brick veneer from the foundation line. It may be narrow enough to miss most days, but once you see it, the wall looks different. The first question is usually
You notice it while walking past the bedroom door, a thin line running diagonally from the corner of the frame toward the ceiling. Maybe it appeared after a storm, or maybe it's been hiding behind paint for months. The question comes quickly: how serious are diagonal drywall cracks, and do
Late summer in Missouri has a way of showing you what the ground has been doing all along. A homeowner steps outside after Labor Day, glances at the garage, and notices a diagonal crack that wasn't there in June. Then the back porch gap looks a little wider, and now
You're halfway down the basement stairs when you spot it, a horizontal line running across the block wall, maybe with a little dampness, maybe with a slight curve in the wall that you hadn't noticed before. That's the kind of finding that makes people stop and stare, because a horizontal
You've just come downstairs after a hard storm, flashlight in hand, and found a dark streak running down the basement wall. Maybe there's a shallow puddle where the wall meets the floor. Maybe the concrete has a white, crusty residue, or a hairline crack is slowly wetting the surface. Water
The storm is still working its way across the neighborhood when you hear the sump pump start cycling faster. Then you notice the dark stain spreading where the basement wall meets the floor. A shop vacuum can't keep up, cardboard smells damp, and the dog refuses to go near the
You notice it while walking past the side of the house, perhaps after a dry spell or a stretch of heavy rain. The mortar line beside a window no longer looks straight. It rises and drops in a diagonal staircase, and suddenly a routine maintenance question becomes, “Is this a
Missouri homes deal with a rough combination for foundation movement: expansive clay soils, more than 100 annual freeze-thaw cycles in the Kansas City area, and a 36-inch frost depth that can add seasonal stress below footings (Kansas City foundation repair overview). One crack or one sticking door doesn't automatically prove
A lot of Missouri homeowners end up in the same spot. You go downstairs after a storm, catch a musty smell, notice a white chalky line on the wall, or spot a crack near the corner and wonder whether you're looking at normal aging or the start of a bigger
After a Missouri spring thunderstorm, the first sign may be a damp strip along the basement wall, a puddle beside the sump crock, or a musty smell rising through the stairwell. The water may look minor, but the useful question isn't only where did it appear? It's why did it
