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.
Step-Downs Aren’t a Defect — Until They Are A step-down foundation isn’t unusual. Anytime a house is built on a slope, you’re going to see changes in elevation. The foundation follows the grade, stepping down in sections instead of cutting and filling the entire lot flat. On paper, that’s efficient
The first time I really got how brutal East Tennessee humidity is on crawlspaces wasn’t from a textbook or a certification class. It was from reading a report our Knoxville inspector sent over after a summer inspection—one of those reports where every photo tells the same story from a different
I’ll be honest—historic homes are my favorite reports to review, and they’re also the ones that make me slow down the most. Every time our Knoxville inspector sends one over from an older neighborhood, I know I’m not about to skim it. I’m about to read it. Because old houses
A Common Complaint With a Hidden Cause When I review reports from our Centerview, Missouri inspector, one issue shows up again and again in Warrensburg homes: movement tied to expansive clay soils. Homeowners usually notice it first in small, irritating ways—doors that won’t latch, windows that bind, or cracks that
I’m based in Memphis, but I review a lot of inspection reports coming out of Southeast Missouri. When our inspector in the Cape Girardeau area flags a crawlspace moisture issue, it’s rarely a surprise. River towns behave differently, and the Mississippi creates a humidity problem that doesn’t show up the
If your crawlspace in West Tennessee still relies on passive vents, it’s already losing. I don’t care how new the house is. I don’t care what the builder said. And I definitely don’t care that “it’s how they’ve always done it.” In the Delta climate—from Memphis to Jackson—passive crawlspace vents
Foundation movement in Madison County doesn’t behave the way most homeowners expect. When cracks appear, the assumption is almost always settlement—soil compressing, footings sinking, structures slowly dropping under their own weight. In large parts of Madison County, that assumption is backward. Here, the problem isn’t that the ground gives way.
Modern home inspections are built around concrete. Cracks in slabs. Spalling in poured walls. Vertical displacement you can measure with a level. Midtown Memphis doesn’t play by those rules. In neighborhoods like Central Gardens and Cooper-Young, many homes were built long before concrete became the default foundation material. What’s holding
Most homeowners in Memphis are told the same thing when cracks show up: “It’s just settling.”That explanation might fly in other parts of the country. In Memphis, it’s often wrong. This city sits on a bluff of wind-blown silt called Loess, and when it fails, it doesn’t fail gently. What
Knoxville houses don’t move like houses in Memphis. They don’t move like houses in Nashville either. East Tennessee sits in the Ridge-and-Valley province, and that terrain changes how soil loads behave, how water moves, and how foundations respond over time. If you’ve ever wondered why one side of a Knoxville
Unlock your home buying potential! This guide clarifies HUD foundation certification, ensuring compliance and smooth transactions for manufactured homes.
If you spend enough time inspecting homes across West Tennessee, you eventually notice something important: the ground changes before the houses do. Hardeman County is where a lot of people get caught off guard—especially buyers coming out of Memphis. They assume soil is soil. It’s not. The shift from Memphis’
