Here we answer questions about getting a home or commercial inspection, give tips on home maintenance, and share our knowledge about common home and commercial property 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.
Central Kentucky’s landscape looks calm on the surface, but what’s happening underground is a different story. When I review inspection reports from our Elizabethtown and Hardin County inspector, concerns about subsurface movement and sinkhole potential come up more often than buyers expect. This region sits on limestone, and limestone dissolves.
Yard drains are supposed to be boring. Water goes in. Water comes out somewhere downhill. End of story. But when they don’t work — and a lot of them don’t — the symptoms show up everywhere except where the problem actually is. That’s why I don’t trust surface appearances. I
Windows don’t fail because glass breaks. They fail because water gets in around them — slowly, quietly, and usually out of sight. By the time someone notices staining or soft drywall, the damage has already been working for years. And almost every time, the real problem isn’t the window itself.
I don’t care how thick the concrete is or how much rebar you buried in it—if a retaining wall can’t drain, it’s on borrowed time. Weepholes look insignificant. Half-inch to two-inch openings near the base of a wall, often ignored, often buried by mulch, soil, or someone’s “landscaping upgrade.” But
The Problem Starts Underground — Long Before the Backup Tree roots don’t break pipes out of aggression. They break them because pipes leak. Older sewer lines—especially clay tile and early cast iron—were never watertight to begin with. Joints shift, gaskets dry out, and hairline cracks form. That moisture plume in
This is one of those components nobody thinks about until it’s missing — and then it’s a problem you can’t unsee. Anti-siphon valves aren’t flashy. They don’t make noise. They don’t leak when they fail. Most of the time, they just quietly do their job. When they’re not there, though,
From the street, stucco and EIFS can look identical. Same texture. Same color. Same clean lines. From an inspection standpoint, though, they live in completely different risk categories — and confusing the two is how moisture problems turn into structural ones. Stucco and EIFS Are Not the Same Thing Traditional
Commercial buildings in Central Arkansas—especially around Little Rock and the surrounding growth corridors—tend to look straightforward at first glance. Many are relatively modest in scale, sit on seemingly flat sites, and don’t show the dramatic distress buyers associate with “problem” properties. That surface calm can be misleading. At Upchurch Inspection,
The Short Answer (Here’s the Risk) Yes—rapid suburban development in Mt. Juliet and Lebanon has changed how water moves, and many newer homes now deal with yard ponding that didn’t exist when the first houses were built.This isn’t bad luck. It’s a side effect of growth. In ZIPs like 37122
The Short Answer (Here’s the Risk) Yes—on lakefront properties in Hendersonville and Old Hickory, the retaining wall often matters more than the house.I’ve inspected plenty of beautiful homes near Old Hickory Lake where the structure was fine—but the land it sat on was quietly failing. When a retaining wall goes,
The Short Answer (Here’s the Risk) Yes—many large homes built in the 1990s in Collierville and Germantown have hidden moisture damage behind synthetic stucco (EIFS), even when the exterior looks perfect.The problem isn’t the stucco itself. It’s that water gets in and has nowhere to go. I see this most
The Short Answer (Here’s the Truth) Homes in Chenal Valley don’t usually sink — they heave.In West Little Rock, particularly around 72223, non-porous clay soils behave like a bowl, trapping water under slab foundations. When that clay gets wet, it expands and pushes the house up. That movement cracks drywall, tweaks doors, and
