mold in SWFL, mold, radon, indoor air quality
EP #2: Building Codes and How They Affect Properties
Hey, Sergio here Max business profits. I’m here again with Rick Kooyman. From trade secrets inspections. As you’ve heard me say in the past, Rick is probably one of the best well qualified, thorough home inspectors I’ve ever met. And coming from a guy who flips houses or used to flip houses on on a regular basis, I can’t tell you how important it is to have a good spectrum in your pocket. In our last episode, Rick was talking about the difference between being in one organization or another being qualified to these organizations as a home inspector. And Rick actually belongs to an association Fabi, which FA BI is actually less than 3% of the home inspectors here in Florida. So it’s a higher bar, it’s a higher requirement and a more thorough inspection, I would assume. So going from there, we’re going to talk about the properties themselves. And a lot to say about that, because Florida is not an older state, when it comes to development and housing and building, it’s a newer state. Most stuff here is less than 40 years all which By comparison, the rest of the country, it’s pretty young. So Rick, why don’t you get right into talking about properties? By age? You know, tell us what the deal is. I mean, old, new, pre pre 2003. I know there’s some code stuff you want to talk about and get into. Go ahead and take over.
Rick Kooyman:Awesome. Great to be with you again, Sergio? Yeah, let’s let’s delve into this issue and properties? And what is the difference between new old and what is new versus old? And, you know, how is it different here in Florida than what is more commonly known? And, you know, we see a lot of people coming down here from all over the country, and they bring their presumed what they’ve lived with for the last 30 years. And, you know, that’s what they know. And, and, you know, it’s a different the biggest thing I can say to everybody out there in regards to house age, and what’s the biggest deal? And the question is, on everybody’s mind, as soon as you own properties, how much does my insurance cost? And yeah, that’s, you know, this is basically what it is to be a Florida property owner is, you know, it’s expensive nowadays, and it’s basically only going to get worse as weather changes. And these claims keep coming. And, you know, as the insurance companies are being made to write these checks, they’re going to keep making it harder and harder on getting the policies. So it all goes hand in hand. But you know, we see people come down here all the time. And they’re looking at, you know, 1985, or 1991. And there’s an assumption that it’s still, it’s been taken care of, it should still be older, but you know, I don’t mind the way the old stuff looks. And as long as it works, it’ll be fine, right. And to some extent, that is true. But to a greater extent, things age a lot differently down here, for one, a big part of that is our water, and the water does to the materials. And a nother big part of it is related to water, but it’s really humidity and temperature. And those two things together will basically dissolve everything in between
Sergio DeCesare:each state. When you say the water like are you talking about like a water that’s in the city water system,
Rick Kooyman:or both? Out? Yeah, whether you’re getting it out of the ground through a well, or you’re getting it from the city that’s been treated. It’s all still pretty hard water. It’s all got a lot of contaminant. And it’s all very rough on the materials that are filled the faucets and pipes. And these things don’t hold up like they used to, you know, so probably, yeah, well, yeah, a big part by design and by, you know, cost of materials to produce. But there’s this this concept that this stuff used to last 20 years and now it only lasts five and that’s really the truth. It does. It doesn’t vary. There are quite a few products out there nowadays that are five to eight year products and they’re big dollar things or hot water tanks. It’s not a 25 year unit anymore. But more importantly what I want to talk about is how relative age on the market and what people are looking at can be thought of as your shopping. And you know you can do this from your desk at home and Kentucky wherever you are, I don’t know. But if you don’t know why It matters, then you just look at everything the same. And here in Florida, there’s been some stuff happen that have made things change that didn’t occur in the rest of the world or the rest of our country. And mostly, it’s due to storms. It started in early 90s. We had Hurricane Andrew came through and change the way that South Florida saw what mother nature could do. Men started it in Miami Dade counties. And they said, you know, we got destroyed, we can’t let things go back to how they were, we have to do something better. And they determined that they needed to separate themselves from the rest of the residential building code with which everybody uses and create something better. You know that that was that was acceptable. But we need more than that. So it’s not that there’s less it’s we’re meeting that and then a whole bunch more. So it’s the Florida building code. And back in the 90s, it was actually the South Florida building in the state of Florida didn’t adopt it. They didn’t actually adopt it till 2001. Politics cost of things. It’s basically just the insurance industry leveraging things. And they weren’t making payouts at that point. They were there was huge growth going on. So there was this big building boom happening. So there was there was revenue coming in, I grew up and pay for everything. Yeah. And that was the that was the good times. But when it went to the bad times, then things changed. And they changed their attitude about that. So in the early 2000s, like I said, in 2001, Florida, as a state said, Hey, this thing that Miami did, seems to be working out for them. And it seems to make sense. So how about we take that South Florida building code and make it the Florida bill. And they did. But they didn’t enact it till 2002. To just make things more complicated, I think but so here’s the bottom line, if you’re looking at a property in Florida, and it was built, prior to 94, it has no Florida building code to it at all, because it didn’t exist. It’s just built, like everything else was in some of them were built good. They knew they were on the coast, and they were, you know, well built homes. And that’s great. But those are few and far between for the most part, they were just building stick houses, like they build them everywhere else. And that didn’t make it. So in 97, it got a little better. But it was mostly down in Miami Dade and Broward counties that had improved. So really the cutoff line that people should reference is 2002. Right? So if you’re looking at property in Florida, and it’s built before 2002, it is very much built differently.
Sergio DeCesare:So I mean, when a lot of that be just based on local jurisdictional rules and stuff like that, like, I mean, my house is built in 92, I didn’t build my house. You know, I’m fairly secure and feeling that my house is well built. Now, of course, it’s black home, which is a completely different breed of animal than the stick home down here. But you know, it weren’t jurisdictional local jurisdictional building rules, kind of pretty good back then. I mean, good enough, let’s say, I mean, we can
Rick Kooyman:code. The code was fine. But it wasn’t specific to wind resistance and uplift loads and stuff like that. They ended up products that were used, weren’t manufactured with those things in mind. So you’re built well, and they knew enough to put straps on the trusses. But did they put the straps appropriately on him? Did they use the right fasteners? You know, because at the time that was just going above and beyond and just doing stuff that made sense. Right? Right. Right. And that was great on those small build, you know, one off homes but the the the inner city track stuff that didn’t occur so much. And those houses have been retrofitted. And that’s why we have this my Florida Safe Home Program, the wind mitigation programs. These are all retrofit programs to upgrade these older homes to meet some of these requirements to resist these storms to meet the wind resistance in the windows and the roof stay on
Sergio DeCesare:and in quite honestly up until Hurricane Andrew I mean, even here on the west coast where we are in Naples, we hadn’t seen a hurricane, what, two decades at least, it was a very long time. Well, last time anybody talked about a real hurricane Danny was Hurricane Donna, and that was in the 60s. Yeah,
Rick Kooyman:I mean, and that’s what’s that’s really what’s changed is it was a once in a decade event, if that, you know, it was a lot. And now it’s more like in every other year, we’re gonna see heavy tropical storms, you can count on it every year, I would expect it. Yeah, well, things are shifting. And you know, every year now, they make it even better. So every three months, the city is updating the codes. And the newer stuff is far superior than the older stuff, it just simply is I mean, and it goes back to the manufacturing side of things where they, they now have protocols, they now have testing standards they have, they’ve been through it enough, they’ve written the checks enough times to say, Hey, this is what we need to pay attention to, let’s make sure we build these products that actually can resist this stuff. You know, so when you’re looking at those early 2000 homes, when they were just implementing these techniques in the early 2000, building, boom, was pretty big down here. It was pretty kind of shotgun style building. And, and a lot of the stuff was done poorly. And it doesn’t meet the requirement. It’s there. But it wasn’t done correctly. And it does the requirements. In and
Sergio DeCesare:this point, you and I both agree at this point. I mean, the codes have changed, but we’re, you know, we’re seeing a lot of shabby workmanship anyway, I think for sure. It’s human nature to curse and do whatnot. I mean, that’s all great. Yeah, the roof will stay, the trusses will stay on the blocks. But everything else going on in between the walls sometimes are just not. You know, that’s, that’s just a function of being human. So okay, so you’ve got your pre 2003 code, you got your pre 1992, COVID, you know, beyond what 2003 To 2007 type of thing.
Rick Kooyman:Where, yeah, in 2007, there was substantial changes made again, because it’s in to between 2005 and 2007, Florida got hit several times by storms. And they said, wow, we really need to get the industry on board of this meeting this code, and they really improve the product quality, you know, so 2007, things actually started to get better. Right? So when we’re looking at houses, if it’s, you know, pre 2010, in my mind, when I go out there, I’m looking for specific things to make sure that those codes were done. And those specific things were met, because they weren’t thought of as much at that point. Yeah.
Sergio DeCesare:And that brings up a great point that I want everybody to understand, you know, you’ve got home inspectors down here, cuz I know a bunch of them. They’ve been inspected, and I’m struggling a couple of years, they do not know what it’s supposed to look like or what to look for, for some of the stuff that isn’t up to code beyond. You know, when you’re, you’re going further back. So I’m in you
Rick Kooyman:know, this is a great compliment, it brings up something that just occurred today, it was really interesting. And this is the perspective thing again, like the I was out to do an inspection. And the customer wanted to have a roofing contractor come out and check the roof. Because they had big concerns about the roof. And that’s fine with me, I’m perfectly okay with you do what makes you comfortable. I’m perfectly qualified to do it for you, that’s fine. But what I’m getting at is when the roofer got done, telling him about how he viewed the roof, which didn’t know was how, what he does as an industry is seen by the insurance industry. Because after they don’t deal with that side of it, they’re gone. It’s after the fact that these insurance documents get filled out. And they don’t know it until they themselves get the letter for their house, about their roof and they’re like, What are you talking about all this and everything. But it’s this is the point is the industry people aren’t being exposed to what is relevant to the homeowner in regard to their specific industry. Right?
Sergio DeCesare:Right. It’s one thing to say yeah, your roof is pretty good. But it’s another thing to say. Okay, according to the insurance company, here’s what it’s lacking or here’s what it what it needs, right exactly not affects the pricing insurance. In any case, whether or not they pay out right.
Rick Kooyman:There you go. Exactly. So you have that. You have that coming from Have the so called expert, the certified license holder in that industry is lacking that knowledge. So you think the average inspector knows it? I can promise you that those guys that are just getting started that don’t, they don’t
Sergio DeCesare:know for sure. For sure way, way. Interesting stuff there. So okay, you brought up roofs. So we’re going to talk about, like, the useful expected life span or cycle of some of these products. Let’s start at the top I mean roofs. I mean, I go through the state like with my roof, I mean, I buy a 30 year shingle. Am I getting 30 years now? She’ll probably not Because Florida is like Mars, right? But the Insurance insurance companies saying, Oh, no, no, no, no, no, here’s how we’re going to do this. We were just talking about this in the network group today. If I referred you to a bunch of people in there, because they’re like, Well, you know, I’m not really sure why. Why is my insurance company telling me I only have three years left to life, on my 20 year shingle roof I only bought five years ago. So right now, you need to talk to as down pat. Yeah.
Rick Kooyman:That’s what I call Florida math.
Sergio DeCesare:Florida math.
Rick Kooyman:It’s definitely related to the Oh, my God, this, this gets really deep into the weeds. Because, you know, when we were asked to predict life expectancies for the insurance industry, like they want to know, when you go out and look at this roof, do you expect it to be here in five years, 10 years? You know, they want to know these things. But you know, it’s very hard for us, you know? How am I supposed to see into tomorrow and know that, right? So there’s, there’s reference charts. Because you know, that makes everything easier, right? Like actuary tables, right? But now we have different places to get reference charts from and they have different numbers on it. So you get different answers from different people, depending on what chart they’re going to use. But when it comes back to is the underwriter and the underwriter is always going to pick the lowest number, right? They’re always gonna pick a smaller note. If I say the roof has five to 10 years on it, they don’t hear a 10 day or five, direct, right? And if they hear five, from their perspective of risk, they’re only going to want to bet on that roof for one more year.
Sergio DeCesare:One more year, not five, oh,
Rick Kooyman:no,
Sergio DeCesare:this is what I’m trying to explain.
Rick Kooyman:Right. So this is where you got a 30 year roof product. Right? The chart says it’s only going to live for 25 years, because it’s in southwest Florida. And it’s pretty harsh environment. And that’s reasonable to say that things age quicker. And then someone else has to predict a life expectancy. So your your you pick a window, right? It’s going to be, you know, in this realm, well, the realm doesn’t exist, the only the little number exists in the insurance person’s eyes. They don’t they don’t live in the realm they live in the risk. So yeah, the roof age matters. But here’s where it gets complicated. Because you can go out here and you can buy a product, you can buy a metal roof product, a clay tile roof is an 80 year roof product, right everywhere else in the world. You know, they’re like, What do you mean, this is stone? It’ll last for 150 years? It’s you know, slate roof. Right? No, because the roof that we’re talking about, isn’t that one, we’re talking about the one that’s just under that one, which everyone refers to as the underlayment that in Florida is your primary roof covering that material is only going to live 20 to 25 years. Right.
Sergio DeCesare:So it doesn’t matter what the Yeah, right. So that’s great. But the the media this is where
Rick Kooyman:the argument gets really weedy because now I believe a good 35 year old metal roof that’s got no issues, except for the age. And the insurance industry in the past used to say, well, we have this great roof certification program, we’re going to send out a qualified person to come out and evaluate the roof and give us an expected useful life on based on their professional opinion of that. Well, not really anymore. No, because they’re just going to look at the chart and the chart stops at 2530 years. And at that point the conversation is over.
Sergio DeCesare:So in essence what you’re saying is if we were going to insure somebody for their shoes, we wouldn’t be looking at their shoes. We’d be looking at their socks. The socks will tell us how Well, the feet are gonna hold up because I mean, look, I mean, go in the slate and doesn’t stop the water. We know that right? That’s not what it’s for. It’s for decorative purposes and maybe hail and stuff like that. It’s what’s underneath that. That’s
Rick Kooyman:right. That’s right. And that’s because of the storms. Right? And that’s the question. People from up north always say, Well, what are you talking about? I’ve been a roofer all my life up north, of course, the shingle roof, it’s a waterproof layer. If you put it together correctly. Of course it is. Well, that’s true, until it gets 140 Miles blown on it. And then it’s not in the same configuration anymore. So it’s not waterproof. The waterproof layer needs to be the one that’s underneath that. And what happens when that covering fails due to that exposure? We’re trying to minimize that water intrusion. Because we expect that to occur. So this is where it’s different down here. Right? If you do things differently, plain and simple.
Sergio DeCesare:Yeah, yeah. Let’s imagine there’s something to be said there about Windows as well.
Rick Kooyman:Oh, absolutely. Oh, my gosh, not only is it about the glazing is, but I mean, it’s it’s everything. It’s not just the glass that is approved and tested. It’s the frame. So there’s approvals for frames, there’s approval for glazings. And then there’s approval for the fasteners. Right. And oftentimes, the attachments are so involved, that the average crew out there, they’re not even paying attention to such things, right? Because what was what was in the what we call the Ta s, or the testing standard, rank, the testing application standard, because there had to be a program to assess things by they said, Well, we bolted this thing in with six inch screws that went five inch into a substrate, and we put them on 12 inch centers. Did you do that?
Sergio DeCesare:More or less? Yeah. Know, more or less, more or less? Yeah, well, we use here.
Rick Kooyman:Yeah, but I mean, nowadays, these things are getting done much better nowadays. But these are the things that in the past, weren’t on that way. We never used a six inch screws putting windows and we always use the three inch Tapcon. Right. That’s not that doesn’t meet that. That does not meet the testing standard.
Sergio DeCesare:I was reading something not that long ago, where somebody had said it to me. And I can’t remember the exact percentage it was somewhere like 90, where they were saying 90% of most of the water intrusion in a home is going to be around the windows after a storm. I don’t know how accurate that was. It depends
Rick Kooyman:on the windows and how it’s done. But yeah, again, and they’re getting better at this because they’re absolutely right. For the longest time we build a masonary wall. Right. And then we shoved a window in the hole. We put sealants all around it right. But the masonry was still masonry, it was still porous, right? And yeah, there’s always elevated moisture, we call it around windows because of that. So now the newer thing is if you look around and you drive around, you’ll notice that around all the windows, they’re sealed. They’re painting. There’s a sealant put on the masonry. It’s a waterproof, then you have right, so right, so these are the things that get changed. These are the updates that happened because Yeah, absolutely. The windows, the older Windows that don’t seal Well, for one. Yeah, I think about 100 mile an hour when separating the seals between the two windows. And yeah, of course, water is gonna go right through it. And
Sergio DeCesare:that’s what you know, people don’t realize too in the store, I mean, I’ve been down here enough to see enough of them. The water doesn’t come straight up and down. It’s like, it’s I never said ways. You know, just picture a firehose against the wind.
Rick Kooyman:That’s what you got to think about when you’re actually assessing. How do you think this is going to handle it? Seriously, think about how it’s going to sit there and take a tremendous amount of water, like a fire hose for a few minutes. Because, yeah, it’s abusive. It’s a big deal. Yeah. You
Sergio DeCesare:know, not to mention, you know, you’re talking about the same firehose, blowing up the shingles and, you know, and whatnot, I don’t care what you say you’re gonna have here. Here’s what water’s gonna find a way to get in
Rick Kooyman:which which you need to understand in a high wind situation, when the wind is gusting over your roofline. You have a lower pressure inside than you do outside. So the house is literally like a balloon trying to expand because of the lower pressure. So not only only is it expanding but to lower pressures our vacuum, it’s a lower pulling those things in as well as the wind, penetrating and pushing it in, because it is truly in a lower pressure situation. So you’re literally sucking the roof off the house is what happens in hurricane. Okay,
Sergio DeCesare:well, we can’t really wrap up. But one more question before that because I was just thinking about this. I see a lot of these roofs they have these cap fins on the top of their ridges. So I can’t imagine that’s a good thing as far as when you’re talking about a storm.
Rick Kooyman:Yeah, ridgeline vents, very particular to wind driven rain intrusion. And it goes all the way across the house, like right in the middle across from one wall to the other. It makes a water intrusion waterfall. And yeah, is sometimes it’s really bad on metal roofs if the cap off incorrectly, you got a slick metal surface, that water is just being rushed up that surface and it goes right up into the attic. And we see it quite often. And it’s devastating. For sure. So
Sergio DeCesare:and being you know, being the Inspector, I know you are I mean, that’s kind of probably one of the things you’re looking for up in those rooms. And whereas another inspector might go, yeah, it looks good to me. I mean, there Look, I’ve I’ve we had enough houses to know what I’m looking for when I get it.
Rick Kooyman:Yeah, it’s not enough for me to go up and say that it’s vented great. But we’re baffles. Right? What are you talking about? I’m like, well, they’re optional. But they shouldn’t be.
Sergio DeCesare:You, representative. Okay, we’re going to wrap up this session. I’m Rick, let’s tell everybody how they can get a hold of you. And again, Rick is available for home inspections, whether you’re buying, if you’re selling, you may want a home inspection, I firmly believe before selling, because especially in this market, this market may be changing. You don’t want to get hit with a surprise. You know, prior to closing, if you’re trying to sell your house, you kind of want to know what’s wrong with it, you know, because these are going to be points of negotiation on the contract. So
Rick Kooyman:if you want to older home, if nothing else, think about getting a four point done ahead of being asked for it. So that you know, before you have a 10 day deadline to get all the stuff done that makes it insurable thing done. Because, yeah, people have seen this all
Sergio DeCesare:the time, I’m seeing people scrambling for sure. You know, and then getting hit with a 678 $9,000 bill, because they didn’t have the foresight to take a look at the stuff prior.
Rick Kooyman:Now, we’d love to help homeowners, we help homeowners as much as we help buyers. So everybody out there can benefit from a great inspection to help. Warranty everything so you get covered for having spent the money on it. So you can’t lose. Yeah, but yeah, you can get a hold of me anytime.
Sergio DeCesare:I tell everybody what a PowerPoint is real quick, because we use the term some people. Yeah,
Rick Kooyman:absolutely. The four point is what the insurance industry calls an inspection involves your electric, your plumbing, your air conditioning system and your roof. Those are the four primary things that they pay money to. They want to know what is the condition of those things. And there’s specifics they want to know about. And it’s not an inspection that makes a lot of sense to a homeowner. But it’s a it makes it makes all the difference in the world to what that rate is. Absolutely.
Sergio DeCesare:Rick, tell me your website. It’s a great website. I’ve been to a many times
Rick Kooyman:trade secrets inspections.com And you can give me at 239-537-1186.
Sergio DeCesare:Enter your email is Rick at trade secret.com You got it. Very good. Excellent. Okay, until our next episode, and next episode, we’re going to talk a little bit more about insurance inspections if that’s okay, Rick, sounds great. Once we’re talking about the wind, man, we’re probably gonna get a little bit into the four point inspections, and why all this stuff really matters to everyone now that
Rick Kooyman:people are getting caught off guard by this left and right because it’s affects every homeowner in Florida at this point. If you haven’t gotten if you haven’t been woken up with the insurance letter yet. You’re you’re going to your time or time doesn’t matter.
Sergio DeCesare:Okay, Rick, thanks a lot, and we’ll catch you on the next one.
Rick Kooyman:Awesome. Thank you