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.
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
One of the most common follow-up questions buyers ask during an inspection is some version of: “About how much do you think this will cost to fix?” It’s a reasonable question. Buying a home is a financial decision, and people want to understand what they’re stepping into. But experienced inspectors
Buyers often focus on a home’s age when trying to gauge risk. “How old is the roof?”“How old is the HVAC?”“How old is the house?” Age matters—but it’s rarely the most important factor. What experienced inspectors really pay attention to is how the house has been maintained, because maintenance history
Some buyers are surprised when an inspector asks a personal-sounding question during or after an inspection: “How long do you think you’ll be in the house?” It can feel irrelevant. The house is the house, regardless of how long you live there—right? In reality, that single question shapes how inspection
Buyers often want a simple verdict at the end of an inspection. “So… is it a good house?” It’s an understandable question. Buying a home is emotional, expensive, and stressful. A clear thumbs-up or thumbs-down would feel comforting. But experienced inspectors almost never answer that question directly—and it’s not because
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
Buyers often expect a home inspection to feel like a long list of individual items: roof, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, foundation. Each part checked, noted, and moved past. But experienced inspectors don’t actually think that way. We think in systems, because houses don’t fail one component at a time. They fail
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
Buyers and property managers: get a crawl space mold inspection that provides photos, a moisture map, and targeted sampling to show active moisture and…
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
Thermal cameras, moisture meters, drones, gas detectors—inspection technology has come a long way. Buyers see inspectors arrive with cases full of tools and assume that the tools themselves are what make an inspection thorough. The reality is less flashy and far more important: equipment doesn’t find problems—experience does. At Upchurch
