Podcasts

EP #4: How the Weather Affects Everything

EP #4:

Sergio DeCesare: 0:07

Sergio here Max business profits, and today I am here again with my friend and inspector, home inspector extraordinaire, Rick Kooyman from trade secrets Inspections today is kind of an interesting little podcast or videocast we’re going to have here. We’re going to talk about the weather now. We’re not just going to talk about any weather. We’re going to talk about Florida weather and why. You need to know how it impacts your home. It the structure of your home and what you can expect living in Florida. Rick, on top of being an extraordinary home inspector, mold assessor, air quality assessor, Rick is also a former pilot, so weather is near and dear to his heart as it is mine, and I’m not a pilot. Never flew an airplane, but jumped out of a few of them, so without taking up any more space or time, let Rick take over. Rick, floor is yours.

Rick Kooyman: 1:08

Awesome. Great to be with you again, Sergio. And this should be fun. Yeah, I thought it’d be different to take a little break from the real estate world. And let’s talk about the weather here a little bit. You know, we

Sergio DeCesare: 1:20

need, we need a break from the real estate world, right? I mean, yeah, right. It’s

Rick Kooyman: 1:24

a little brutal, but, you know, so is the weather,

Sergio DeCesare: 1:27

so is the weather. So here we go, yeah. Welcome to Florida.

Rick Kooyman: 1:30

Welcome to Florida, exactly. So, you know, like, like, everybody says It’s paradise. Well, you know what? Paradise can be, harsh, defined paradise. I always say, right, right. So let’s talk about what weather is, you know, fundamentally, how it happens. And, you know, we’re basically, we’re going to discuss thunderstorms and how that becomes into, you know, the bigger things, which is our our names, threat is the hurricane. So if we can just have a basic understanding of how weather works and the fundamentals of it. Then when you go outside, you can kind of just look up at the sky and kind of read it for yourself and get an idea of what the atmosphere is doing just from fundamental understanding of what you’re seeing. So I thought I’d share a little knowledge on that. Like you said, I do have a long background in aviation, and I spent many years teaching people to fly and teach in weather in classrooms. So this is not a foreign topic to me by any means. So let’s, let’s talk about that. You know, the biggest player in the weather is the same biggest player and owning our homes and and that’s, that’s the sun and ultimately water, you know? And those are the two big players and and what we own and how we live and what the day does. So how does it work? It starts with that sun, that big star. It’s up there. It’s fusing, you know right now, it’s fusing hydrogen into helium, and in doing that, it’s creating a abundance of excess energy. It is radiating that energy outwards in forms of shortwave radiation and microwaves and such. And those, those radiation waves go out, and they get absorbed by the things out in the universe, such as the Earth and us. And in turn, those objects absorb that energy and radiate it back as heat, right? So that’s where we get the heat that we live with, and we end up collecting it down here in paradise, as they call it. But where does that go with it? So ultimately, because the Earth is not an even surface, and we have variations in materials and colors and textures and all that, we end up with uneven surface heating, right? So we have hot spots and cold spots and the parking lots hotter than the pond and all this, that and the other thing. So we end up with a temperature differential. And in our world, we have hot and cold and high and low pressure, and hot moves towards cold, and high moves towards low, and in so doing, we end up with things moving or motion, and that is wind, right? Plain and simple, that’s where wind comes from. It’s uneven surface temperature, which is ultimately more accurately defined as a pressure differential,

Sergio DeCesare: 4:22

right? Probably accounts for the turbulence you feel on an airplane.

Rick Kooyman: 4:25

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s just those are air current flows, which we’ll get into how those occur, and that’s going to play into how a thunderstorm develops and and how it ends its life, ultimately. But yeah, what we’re playing with is basically, we have surface heat going on and and once that occurs, it is going into an environment of that is constantly changing. So our atmosphere is constantly moving and changing. It’s never static. Sitting there. But we like to use some reference numbers as just a point of talking about to ease the confusion and all the the variables that play into the weather and make it so difficult to predict, right. So when things get hot, they expand right? Pretty fundamental idea physics, right? So let’s take a fixed parcel of air, just like a cube of air or a balloon of air, and let’s just say we put it out in the parking lot and we let it get hotter than the sun. We can assume that that air pressure is going to go up, right? Because is it getting hotter, the pressure inside the balloon is increasing, and the balloon is going to expand relative to the pressure outside the balloon, right? So hot and high pressure go together, and cold and low pressure go together, is the fundamental understanding here, right? So if we have our parcel of air, our balloon, right, and it’s at the ground, at sea level, and it’s at what we call standard atmosphere, which we’ll just say is, you know, we’ll just call it 59 degrees, which is where they like to start it at, right, and we take that balloon and we lift it up to 1000 feet, right as we go up into the atmosphere, there’s less above us of the atmosphere, which is less weight, which is also lower pressure, right? So just going up, it lowers pressure, right? Because you’re just you’re getting higher in the atmosphere. There’s less above you pushing down on you. That’s lower pressure. Okay? So if we take the balloon and we raise it 1000 feet, it’s in an environment that the pressure is decreased and it is expanded. When it expanded, it cooled, and it cooled at a rate that we have measured as a reference point. Again, we call it the adiabatic lapse rate. It’s just a rate of cooling, right? Big words, great things, whatever. But we just need to understand that as we take our balloon and we lift it up, it cools as the pressure goes down, but the standard is, say, three and a half degrees Fahrenheit per 1000 feet, right? If it’s cooling at a different rate than the the environment around it, it’s going to go up or down relative to what it’s doing, right? So if the balloon is hotter inside than the air outside of it, it’s going to continue to go up, right? Because it’s still warmer,

Sergio DeCesare: 7:47

right? Hotter. That’s the whole concept behind flying in a hot air balloon.

Rick Kooyman: 7:51

Yeah, absolutely, it’s fundamentally how it works. Hot air rises. So that’s all I can think of, right? We’re keeping it as basic as we can, so Right? Hot air is going to go up, right? So if, if we have our balloon in an environment that when we raise it 1000 feet, its rate of cooling is at, let me say this correctly now, if, if it’s cooling slower than the environment around it, it’s going to stay warmer, right? And then it’s going to continue to rise. And we can also call that unstable, right? So it’s going to continue to move in the direction of which it was going. Stability would be to suppress motion and to stop things, correct, right, right? So that would be the opposite side of that. If we took the balloon up and the outside air was at a higher temperature than our balloon, then our balloon is colder than the air around it, and it descends, contracting, right, right? So that would be stability, okay, or relatively higher pressure, right? So in in the environment has a lot to do with what happens during the day, when we have that uneven temperature heating going on, right? Because we have the diurnal cycle of night and day, and we have the differential of materials and colors and all that. We get the temperature differential, but the air environment keeps changing as like big oceans of air, basically, and and sometimes we’ll have a stable air mass over us, and sometimes we’ll have an unstable air mass over us. So we go back to what the balloon wants to do, and the unstable air mass, which is more typical of this tropical environment, and it has to do a lot with we get an excessive and our abundance of heating going on. So now our balloons get really hot, and they start to go up in the middle of the afternoon, right? Well, as they’re going up, they’re going up and cooling. And. Uh, at a rate slower than what the atmosphere is doing, and they’re still hot, so

Sergio DeCesare: 10:08

they can just what’s causing condensation, basically, well, this

Rick Kooyman: 10:11

is how we get the the clouds to form, right? So the temperature differential creates the uplift. Now we can have uplift created by mountains or whatever. But down here, we don’t have we don’t even have a hill, but we have temperature differential, and that’s our lifting force, right? So our lifting force is really temperature differential, and then it’s the environment stability. And we often have more temperature differential than we have stability. So regardless of how good the sky looks. We’re generally in a non stable atmosphere in the afternoon, sure, and we get afternoon thunderstorms. This is how this happens. So that whole cycle you just described, they just right. So as everyone is going up and it’s cooling down, eventually that parcel of air meets its dew point right, and condensation occurs, which is the same thing that’s happening in our homes and our AC vents, and causing the mold to grow on the ceiling. The local temperature at that vent is at or below the dew point of our local environment, and the water is coming out of gas state and becoming a liquid liquid, right? So as that’s transitioning states in the sky, it’s it’s actually attaching itself to dust particles. You know, the the water needs something to adhere to, to go from the gas state to the liquid state, and it becomes a little tiny particle of water on a piece of dust. And those build up, and they’re held up in the sky in a localized cold area, and that’s what we call our cloud, right? So we see what is the same as you know, the morning fog on the ground. That’s visual condensation. That is a cloud on the ground. That’s the same thing. Fog is a cloud, right? So it’s just moisture changing states. And then if we keep it in that unstable environment, which we generally have because of the excessive heat, then that uplift continues to occur, and the little white puffy cloud now becomes the towering white puffy cloud, which we call the towering cumulus cloud. And that towering cumulus cloud develops into the mature thunderstorm, right? And that just is water particles moving at a high rate of speed in a vertical air mass going up and down in the sky because of this temperature thing going on, and they create static. The static, you know, is more energy, and it in, we get A a net positive and a net negative building up in the clouds, and we have thunder and lightning, right? So this is all just this moisture moving around, happening the same thing, and it all came from that temperature differential, and just how the pressure changes affect and what the differentials are relative to each other, whether it goes up or down, and the stability of things, right? So as the thunderstorm develops and it gets big, it reaches its saturation state event eventually, and then it starts to rain, right? And it’s what we call the mature state of the thunderstorm. So basically, now we have up that drafts and downdrafts occurring in that cloud. The downdrafts are the rain literally falling out of the cloud, right? So they’ve, they’ve reached a mass that needed them to fall out. Gravity won the race, and now they’re falling okay? There can be a lot of dynamic stuff going on in that storm, and oftentimes that rain drop will get cycled through the cloud up and down. As it goes through a downdraft, it’ll get caught in an updraft, and then it will become what we call super cooled water, which is water below the freezing point, right? So it’s not even ice. It’s still liquid. Because, literally, it’s surface tension is stronger than the expansion force of the freezing of the water, so the water becomes super cooled, and as soon as something breaks that surface tension touches that water, it freezes on it, it becomes ice, and that’s how airplanes get ice on them. They fly through the the super cooled cloud, and it literally just becomes ice on the surface. Well, that same thing can occur in the thunderstorm without the airplane, and that’s a hailstone, right, right? So that’s those things around, and you can’t even believe it, but that’s that ice ball is literally going up and down in that cloud, you know, 30, 40,000 feet, and then it gets shot out of the top of the cloud, most of the time when it’s hail, because it’s finally ejected out and leaves that cycle. And you see the hail storms, and you’ll see the hailstorms. Arms, and they’ll be in sunny skies a lot of times. They’re outside of the thunderstorm. They’re on the the leading side of it. In fact, because the updraft is so strong, it’s like a cannon. It’s shooting them out of it. Literally, they’ve

Sergio DeCesare: 15:12

picked up so much mass from from falling and going back up and freezing and expanding and wow, wow. I mean, alright, well, that was 20 minutes

Rick Kooyman: 15:22

of holy cow, right?

Sergio DeCesare: 15:25

A semester worth of, you know, weather sciences in high school, but so being in this condition, what, eight or nine months out of the year at this point, it seems like I’m assuming that takes a major toll.

Rick Kooyman: 15:44

Yeah, absolutely. I mean churches we live in. That’s why the word harsh, I think, goes with Paradise very well down here, because our two biggest enemies to our properties are water and sun, whether it be water in a liquid form or the gaseous form, which is the local humidity, which is generally the biggest monster we fight down here, is the humidity coming into the environments and causing the mold problems. I was just at a customer’s house this past week, you know, and she was having mold throughout the house, and there was more ventilation bathrooms without, you know, exhaust vents, but they have windows, you know? And she says, Well, I open the window after I take a shower to let it dry out. Well, the that’s actually working against you, right? It’s more human outside than it is inside and inside, right? There’s this, this fancy word called psychometrics that says heat and humidity, move and and, yeah, you’re actually not helping yourself with that window situation. So yeah, water. Big problem the sun. Big problem it wears on things. Uv is a real thing, and

Sergio DeCesare: 16:54

I can tell you, that’s probably one or two of the things I hate most about living down here. Because number one, anything out in the sun, whether it’s your lawn mower, your fencing, nothing, nothing lasts. No. I mean, this sun just breaks everything. I’m actually surprised how well roofs last, how long they last. And that’s, you know, they

Rick Kooyman: 17:18

never last as long as they’re warrantied for organic. The biggest thing down here, that’s what confuses people so much, is they’re so used to 30 year warranty, yeah, so much longer, and they can’t conceive of it’ll only last you maybe a year, and then the the sun is going to destroy it, and it ain’t going to be heaven anymore, yeah?

Sergio DeCesare: 17:39

And it’s the same wood moisture. I mean, there’s not anything I can keep outside, and it doesn’t somehow find water into it. I I don’t get it. I was like, just going through this this weekend. I was like, you know, I have these buckets and these containers outside with painting supplies, you know, in the on the patio, you know, out of, you know, underneath the overhang. And I’m like, I open it up and there’s an ancient water in them. I’m like, What? What the How insane. Every I just, I mean, the rain here too. It’s just the rain will come down. It’ll go sideways, I swear to God,

Rick Kooyman: 18:14

like a liquid sky for Yeah,

Sergio DeCesare: 18:16

it’s just, it’s like, I Why don’t you just take whatever you’re putting outside and just for about 30 something, and that’s about two weeks outside. But Okay, so moving forward. I mean, so what do people need to know, and how do you work with something like this? Well, you

Rick Kooyman: 18:31

gotta understand that, you know, it’s a constant maintenance effort there. There is no golden bullet. There is no super solution. I mean, this is the whole cycle. You know, that thunderstorm that we have every day is the same motive and monster that is the hurricane that we’re all waiting, you know, to not happen, but is ultimately, you’re breaking my heart, Rick, I was waiting for but it’s just this isn’t my ever ending fight, and you have to acknowledge that if you want to be in this environment, you have to accept it for what it is. And part of that is is living down here requires different maintenance practices and understanding that buying a 30 year old house is probably in a different condition then you may think it may be, if you’re coming from, you know, the Midwest or right the southwest, for that matter, where time stops and things last forever. And

Sergio DeCesare: 19:30

it’s funny, you bring this up because there’s still quite a few wood frame houses out there. And I used to really like wood frame houses, because I felt like, well, the house, the house can breathe a little bit, right? It can contract and expand and but, you know, as time goes on, I realize that I don’t care if my house breathes or not.

Rick Kooyman: 19:55

Now, we’re not in the environment where the breathing house method that is a real now. Destruction methodology. But, yeah, it’s not a good thing down here. No, no, it’s

Sergio DeCesare: 20:05

not. And, you know, I come from up north, where it’s viewed very differently. But I mean, and I used to think, well, that’s a good thing. I mean, you know, people always used to say, well, with with frame houses, you have more incidents of termites Well, and that’s not necessarily true. You’ll get subterranean termites in, in the rafters, in the trust,

Rick Kooyman: 20:24

every season, anyway. So, right? So

Sergio DeCesare: 20:27

what I’ve come to realize is there’s nothing to do with termites. It’s all about the moisture. It’s all about moisture, the frame of that house, absorbing water over time. And it’s wood. I don’t care how much you pressure treat it, you know, short of ceramic coating it. And

Rick Kooyman: 20:45

then you gotta understand that those things are porous materials, absolutely, even when, even when concrete, even concrete, yeah, and they get mold on them, and people think that they can be treated or painted or cleaned. And ultimately, once it’s affected, it’s it’s never unaffected. If it’s not, you can scrape it off of hard, then it’s not gone. Unfortunately, it’s gonna either it’s gonna come back, it’s gonna create that odor. That odor is a mycotoxin. It’s a voc gas. It’s not gonna come up in an air sample, you know, like a spore, but it can still be in the airspace. You know, it’s a whole different thing to test for, to try to pull a gas sample out of airspace.

Sergio DeCesare: 21:27

So you just have curiosity, the house that you looked at today, what was, was, what was the proximate age of that house?

Rick Kooyman: 21:33

Oh, it was a late 90s home,

Sergio DeCesare: 21:37

which, there are plenty of them here, yeah,

Rick Kooyman: 21:40

I live in one, yeah, yeah. It was a classic late 90s construction home, flat Ranch, yeah. So,

Sergio DeCesare: 21:50

yeah. So you’re, you know, a late 90s home might seem like an old house here, but you go to other places of the state. You go to other places the country. No, that’s 30 year old house. Ain’t that

Rick Kooyman: 22:02

old? No, we’re not even starting looking at old at that point, right? But down here, it’s like that, that yard equipment, stuff. I mean, it’s these products. There’s very few products that will go 30 years in this environment. You know, I had this conversation with the the roof people all the time, the metal roofs, the concrete tile roofs, you know, the glass tile roofs, they got 5060, year life expectancies from the manufacturer. Well, that’s great, but they’re not the only thing up on the roof. There’s an underlayment and a roof deck, fasteners and all these other things and adhesives. And none of those things last that long.

Sergio DeCesare: 22:41

And you know, I raise poultry as a hobby. I have turkeys and stuff, and a lot of their devices to feed and water them are made of plastics and abs, all that stuff. And I’ll tell you what, none of that stuff, I never had any of that stuff last more than nine months to a year. Yeah, it’s out in the sun, getting here by three to four hours of sunlight a day.

Rick Kooyman: 23:07

I know, I know it’s crazy.

Sergio DeCesare: 23:08

I tell people, you walk out there, you pick it up, the handle just comes right off the snare, just, I mean, it’s amazing even, even, like, you know, I used to back in the day. I’ve been through like, probably three or four riding lawn mowers, you know? And just like the seats and every artist, any class, everything, even if you look at the cars, right, well, why is the plastic on these cars starting to crack and fade? I have a Land Rover out there, 2002 every piece of plastic on that car exterior, every piece of trim. Don’t even touch it. Yeah, brittle. It’s like eggshells. Yep,

Rick Kooyman: 23:47

it’s insane. It’s in crazy. It’s a crazy environment. People, you know, it’s paradise. It’s paradise, my friend. Now there’s a price, I

Sergio DeCesare: 23:56

guess, right, isn’t there, though? So you know, people, people need to be aware of this, and need to be aware of of the impact this stuff has in their exterior of the home. But of course, the interior of the home, because at some point, if the interior gets moisture, that that that mold, is going to get into the air system,

Rick Kooyman: 24:17

yeah. And the thing is, is that we are constantly in the state of all mold needs is a place to land, because it’s got everything else in the air. It’s so humid, the conditions are ideal for it. So, yeah, it’s the it’s always there. It’s always just waiting. I wouldn’t

Sergio DeCesare: 24:37

be surprised. I mean, just based on air conditioning units and the way they’re designed, I I mean, they’re drawing air from the outside. Most

Rick Kooyman: 24:45

often there’s our homes are not airtight. And then when we create on systems, we pump outside air back into the house,

Sergio DeCesare: 24:51

right? But that’s why you kind

Rick Kooyman: 24:55

of counterproductive, right? But

Sergio DeCesare: 24:56

you look at your grill on your AC unit, you. And own the air handler. Well, that mold came from someplace. He just didn’t decide to

Rick Kooyman: 25:05

appear. It came out of the air and it landed on right now you’re pumping it around the house and, yeah, fortunately, that coil is a metal surface, and if it’s maintenanced properly, regularly, you can get it cleaned and it’s not, yeah, and you can use ultraviolet light to repel it as much, and you gotta do all these things. Yeah, that’s the end of the day over bullet. There’s no magic. Yeah, we got it solved

Sergio DeCesare: 25:29

at the end of the day, though. I mean, if, if somebody suspects they even have mold in their home, or, you know, if you found it inside of vanity cabinet or something like that, you pretty much probably should get an air quality test, as my guess,

Rick Kooyman: 25:45

well, more than just the air quality test, because that’s why I mentioned the word mycotoxins, because the air quality test is for particles, and a mycotoxin is a gas. It’s the gas product that you are feeling and experiencing, right? That you smell that musty odor, yeah, that is more readily identified through a visual inspection of someone that’s practiced and knows what to look for and what the signs are and what the indications of that might be. In there, there are means of doing mycotoxin testing. It’s, it’s a little elaborate, and it’s, you know, in my opinion, not necessary, unless there’s some legal reason that we have to prove this. But people need to understand that a moldy environment is an unhealthy environment, and that if you continue to stay in a moldy environment over a period of time, it will have a neurological effect on you. It will heal. Yeah, it will change the way you behave. It will change the way the medications you take affect you. I mean, it has huge in the, you know, down the line, effects on things that people don’t even realize, and they’re just like, Oh, who cares? It’s just mold. There’s mold everywhere. Why do we even care? Well, to each his own, and if you can tolerate it, great, you. That’s fine, but in most cases, it is having a a health effect on us. Yeah.

Sergio DeCesare: 27:17

Do you care about your children? Do you care about your pets? Or do you care about

Rick Kooyman: 27:22

your employees? That’s another I often go into offices that have moldy, you know, air ducts and mold, smell it on the corner and and you got to understand that, as an employer, your employees function is going to be affected by that environment and that health effect, right? So their performance is deteriorating because you have them in an unhealthy environment. So it’s in everybody’s interest to deal with these things. Yeah, yeah,

Sergio DeCesare: 27:48

for sure. So I’m assuming you’re qualified to detect all this. And yeah, absolutely, that’s

Rick Kooyman: 27:56

what we hear to do and try to we, you know, we, we’re here to to share the knowledge and spread the truth, and we don’t do the work. You know, we’re not selling the remediations, we’re not selling the kitchens, we’re not selling the handlers. We’re just out there telling that it’s true or it’s not true. You know, every, not everybody, is a liar, and not everybody’s telling the truth

Sergio DeCesare: 28:19

right, right there. And I guess there’s different variations of the truth, I suppose, but for sure, right?

Rick Kooyman: 28:25

And, and like I said to each his own. You know, we all get to decide, ultimately, what our environment is we want to live in. But you gotta understand that sometimes disregarding things is not necessarily in your favor. No,

Sergio DeCesare: 28:38

not at all. Okay, great. So if somebody’s trying to get a hold of you, what’s what’s your phone number, give us your website address, give us all that pertinent information.

Rick Kooyman: 28:47

Absolutely, you can get a hold of me directly at 239-537-1186, anytime you can call me or text me. You can email me at Rick at trade secrets inspections.com and obviously that’s the website trade secrets, inspections, secrets and inspections within us.

Sergio DeCesare: 29:08

Com, well, and before you you sign off here, and I’m going to want you to get that information out again, but I want you to stay all the services that you are providing, because you’re not just a mold guy. You’re not just a, yeah, we

Rick Kooyman: 29:23

can help you with everything from your insurance inspections and your insurance documents to dealing with the problems in the spotting and the odors. I have test equipment for, you know, a dozen different various gasses, and we can be including radon, including radon absolutely, you know, we we run the gamut on trying to understand what’s going on with homes, helping people own their homes, helping them work with their contractors, helping them understand what contractors they need to work with, and when all these things. Are owning homes and not just selling homes and buying homes. Of course, we do that stuff as well. And you know, it’s like I said, if you want to go out and get fast food, you go to the franchise that sells the fast food. And you know what you’re getting. If you want good food, you don’t go to the franchise, right? You find the people that know what they’re doing, and it makes a difference, right,

Sergio DeCesare: 30:30

right? Very good. So, yeah, that’s, that’s Rick trade secret inspections if you’re looking to buy or sell real estate, I think you know, if you’re looking to sell real estate at this point trying to get some of these inspections done, because you’re competing in a market with an incredible amount of inventory right now,

Rick Kooyman: 30:47

you need everybody getting into a competition. Yeah, you’re you’re going to need

Sergio DeCesare: 30:51

every edge possible over your competitor to to close a deal as fast and as much money as possible. Rick does this. So one

Rick Kooyman: 31:00

more time before the listings, the pre listings. Great listing. Inspection, environmental, anything you need so you’re not caught off guard. You know what’s going on, and you know it’s not a it’s not a problem to have to disclose things. Sometimes it’s not a bad word. You want to make things happen faster.

Sergio DeCesare: 31:19

That’s right. Rick, one more time, phone number and website address, 239-537-1186,

Rick Kooyman: 31:28

and trade secrets inspections, com,

Sergio DeCesare: 31:32

excellent. Okay, until next time. And Rick is, Rick is a pretty regular person that we have on this podcast and this videocast, because Rick is full of incredible information. And if you are involved in real estate whatsoever in Collier County, Rick is a guy you’re going to want to connect with. So thank you again, Rick for being here, and until next time, all the best to you. Yep, it was a pleasure.

EP #3: Navigating Insurance Demands

All Podcast Episodes

EP #3: Navigating Insurance Demands

Sergio DeCesare: 0:00

Hi. Again, my name is Sergio Max business profits. I’m here with my friend and home inspector extraordinaire, Richard cleaning, also known as Rick Kooyman. He owns trade secret inspections. And we are on the third segment of our little talk. Today’s information is going to be insurance inspections and why it matters to everyone. So, Rick, take it away, where would you like to begin this conversation?

Rick Kooyman: 0:36

Well, it’s good to be back with you, Sergio. Let’s start there. And let’s go with man, I hope everybody out there is listening to this one, I really do this one comes up, I gotta say, every day, I have someone with this exact problem in my world of what’s going on. And it comes down to what you don’t understand about what is changing with the insurance world, what the significance of these forms. And these inspections. Now they’ve been around for a while they’ve had these forms since 2012. But they didn’t use them the same way. They didn’t really reference them the same way as they are now they didn’t rely on him as much. And now they absolutely are. And they’re absolutely the thing that is standing between you and your insurance. And that’s because when you get told to have these inspections done, your insurance is just about to expire, or has expired. And eight and 10 people have something that needs repaired in their house according to these horns. So what does that mean? That means that now you’re under the gun, to get to whatever spec you don’t understand, the insurance company is actually looking for you to be at. And now you have a time constraint. Or you’re looking at going with and the bank putting PMI on it. And you’d have to deal with that. And my message to this is why I say everyone is just because you call and ask for a four point inspection doesn’t mean you have to send it to your insurance people. You can use it for your own perspective, and go hey, is this a clean four point? And if not, why isn’t it and let’s take some time, and I need anywhere conditioner, I need a new hot water tank or I need repaved or I need a new panel or I need a new roof or, you know, the list is long. And it’s expensive. And, you know, I, every day I’ve got one today. They’re just like, I got the the four point you sent us. It’s it’s the insurance says that there doesn’t need approval. And you know, I’m like, Well, I told you that when we did it. And it’s all in what needs to be corrected. It’s all cited there. And there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s, you know, it is what it is their pictures. They they’re labeled. So before you get into

Sergio DeCesare: 3:17

the forms, and the four point inspection, which we’ll explain what that is, we have wind mitigation inspections on their roof certificates. I’m a little confused, right, because my insurance has basically doubled. I haven’t had any claims. You know, my roof isn’t a brand new roof. And you know, I’ve had this conversation before where I’m really fearful where they’re going to come back and say, Hey, we’re not going to insure you unless you replace the roof. Now mind you, I have no leaks, no matter no missing shingles I true I had the roof treated, protected, which they don’t doesn’t seem like they really care about. So I don’t understand because I’m only paying a little over five grand a year for homeowners. But I know people who are paying six 912 $1,000 Right? Yeah, sure, absolutely. But I feel like the insurance companies are either a trying to not write a policy on that property. Or just trying to basically just say, you know, we don’t we’re not going to cover all these things because you know, there’s hurricane deductibles and everything else that goes along with that, at the end of the day are really getting the coverage. So tell us how these forms kind of integrate with what we’re getting for what we’re paying for which seems like we’re paying a lot more now than ever.

Rick Kooyman: 4:45

And you are you are you absolutely are. Obviously everybody can see what prices are in prices don’t double and triple is pretty obvious. What is going on is exactly what you said the insurance industry Free is doing everything they possibly can, to, in their words, get back on their feet, they need to recover money from you, and not write you checks. So that’s where this stuff comes in. So they’re very much paying attention to these forums. Like I said, they, they didn’t just create them, they’ve been around. They’re just now saying, hey, we want only yeses and satisfactory ease, no issues of any kind. And there’s definitely age limits that we’re looking at. It’s not conditional based on some things. It’s just simply it’s this, this is how old it is, and we’re not going to touch it. And that’s where, you know, like, your roof situation comes in, and you know, well, maybe the roof is fine, and you can come out and the roofers will say, well, there’s nothing wrong with this roof, there’s no problems, there’s no leaks, there’s no reason to do anything to it, except that you want to buy insurance. And insurance doesn’t want to write you a policy on an old product. They’re just not doing it anymore.

Sergio DeCesare: 6:06

So that’s an that’s very disheartening, because I can tell you,

Rick Kooyman: 6:09

and the coverages you’re getting are less and you’re not paying more. And you’re going to end there, the barricades between you and that claim are getting greater in the sense of, you know, House Bill 7052, where they amended all these things. And they said, No more assignments of benefits. And you know, now you’ve got to pay your own attorneys fees is one way the attorney fee things over with, well, those are game changers. That’s not just about, oh, we’re gonna stop the abuse. You’ve put the power now in the insurance company’s hands, and now they’re gonna abuse you. Well, you kind of took the words out of my mouth.

Sergio DeCesare: 6:49

I was sitting here thinking, Well, I happen to know that, that a lot of where the money’s going with these insurance companies is for litigation. Most

Rick Kooyman: 6:59

of it, the attorneys are make 80% of the losses are litigation losses. And then you have these users and I can make an argument in there. There’s, there’s truth to be had to these stories. And there’s truth on both sides of it. Right? So there’s no one place to point the finger and say, this is where it went bad. It went bad. When the weather changed, and there was catastrophic loss. That’s when he went bad. And then everybody went, right, you know, not me, you. And they were left holding the bag. And there was there was a lot of different languages in the coverage policies. In particular, after Irma regarding the roofs where there wasn’t a proration wrote into the coverage policy on your roof. So the insurance company got held responsible for the 100% cost of the replacement of that expired roof, they got damaged. And they’re like, well, it was 25 years old and expired anyways, but we didn’t catch up to it in time to pay for all those new roofs. And we’re gonna do that ever again.

Sergio DeCesare: 8:12

Right. Understood?

Rick Kooyman: 8:16

Yeah, I mean, it’s for real. And that’s why I say everybody is under the guise of how it used to be. And that, you know, insurance is here to help you out and we have this stuff to be our coverage. Right. And we still do, we just have to understand that it’s actually not an entitlement. It’s something that is an investment, and we have to work towards, and we have to make sure that we’re meeting our side of the agreement. Well,

Sergio DeCesare: 8:50

it’s worse than that. Even I think, because as a as a guy who has a mortgage on the property, I don’t have the option of insurance or no insurance or self insurance. Exactly. So I have to do it, basically pay 9000 miles a year for the benefit.

Rick Kooyman: 9:07

Yeah, for sure.

Sergio DeCesare: 9:08

And God forbid, put contents on my policy. You know, because I’ve looked at that too. I’ve taken contents off my balls, like crazy. It’s crazy stupid. And I don’t know, it’s I look when when you have in here 2030 years in our house, they only have 510 years left to pay on their mortgage, and they can no longer afford to even the mortgage payment because now it’s escrow the new amounts are escrowed into a mortgage payment. And there we go. We got a sack

Rick Kooyman: 9:36

stamp come south Florida. Yeah, yeah, we inflation is driving people, retired people, you know, at the end of the whole program, saying, Oh, by the way, we’re going to take your house now. Right? Yeah, like, there. That’s no joke. Yeah,

Sergio DeCesare: 9:56

no, it’s a serious, serious issue. So that being said, Tell us about the wind mitigation? Well, let’s start with the fourth point. Tell us tell us what the fourth point is. It’s so important. Well, let’s

Rick Kooyman: 10:07

start with Mike just changed. Now it’s gonna be okay. The four point is what insurance sees as their biggest expense risks. So it’s ROOF, ELECTRIC, PLUMBING, and HVAC. Those are the four points, if you will. So under each one of those content sections, there’s a bunch of what is it? How old is it? And what kind of problem questions and they’re basically checkbox stuff? It’s very specific to what they want. It’s not subjective. Right? So are there these things are there? Is there corrosion? Is there signs of leakage? Are there water stains on the ceilings? Is there water staining around the air conditioner, we have to provide a photo to them. So if you had an old condensate leak that got fixed, but you know, the standard of the air conditioners all stained out, and that looks like a mess, and they’re going to look at it and go, No, thanks. Yeah, that’s a problem. We think that looks like a problem. You know. So this is what I’m saying, you know, everybody needs to catch on, that these things need to happen for their own edification. So that they understand when they get asked these insurance questions where they stand, right? Because for so long, nobody ever thought that these things mattered. And now all of a sudden, all these things mattered. And everybody was like, I have that fixed. And I don’t care about this thing. I understand that you don’t care about the stain. But the underwriter looks at it. And all they do is look at the photo and go, Well, there’s a risk there. And I don’t want to bet on high risk stuff.

Sergio DeCesare: 11:56

Yeah. And so like we were saying earlier, they’re looking for reasons not to insure,

Rick Kooyman: 12:01

yes, they’re looking for any reason that might cost them money. Right. And yeah, ultimately, that means that they’re not going to offer you an insurance coverage for they might offer you a policy that right out that issue. Or you know, you get no water coverage, or you get no wind coverage, or you know, whatever it may be, but at the end of the day, what you’re doing is you’re paying a bunch of money, and you’re getting the right of saying you have insurance, but the actual end of the day coverage of what you’re getting back is unfortunate. Let’s just leave it at that. You’re making your mortgage company happy. But that’s about it. Yeah, you’re meeting your specific required obligations, obligations. But yeah, the industry, homeowners, just being a homeowner, as an industry is changing. And it’s changing because of the insurance industry. Right. And it’s actually finally starting to show stuff in the market leases. And these older people getting basically thrown out of their homes, because their fixed income won’t pay the property tax, and the property insurance, and by food. Medicine, they own a house, they’ve owned a house for 30 years. It’s true. Yeah, I’m seeing more and more of this. Right. And this is all inflation, every which way you look at it. But you know, at the end of the day, the ultimate cost of the what happened is someone had move.

Sergio DeCesare: 13:42

Yeah, I think a lot of it is inflation,

Rick Kooyman: 13:44

because obviously something needs to be fixed or replaced. There’s materials involved and the materials labor have gone up in price. But I think ultimately, too, I mean, a lot of this is just caused by the change in weather patterns. Oh, yeah. You and I talked about this in the last episode. I mean, there wasn’t even, you know, we never ever ever had hurricanes here. And it was it was like What? No, not here. The last major hurricane was like in 1965, Hurricane Donna. Yeah, the cycles are changing. Yeah, the cyclists changing and the city and the insurance companies are catching on. And the older homes are not going to be allowed to be put back to how they were post damage. There’s, you know, so you get a requirement now to do a full up to code renovation. When you only had to do a partial repair instead. Now, sorry, if you want to do your doors and windows, you’re gonna do all your doors and windows. You know, they’re there. They’re getting tight on things and every which way you go and you know, the property values go up your property insurance goes up. And again, the people on the fixed income side of things, you know, People see it as a when your property value went up? Well, they didn’t want to leave their fixed income didn’t make it to the property tax and the insurance requirement anymore. Right. Right. Right for the property value.

Sergio DeCesare: 15:15

But true. So going back to the four points, yeah. So

Rick Kooyman: 15:20

you know, going back to the four point, you know, that’s it’s just important for people to be proactive is the message. If you have had insurance forever, and you’ve got an older home, think about spending a couple 100 bucks to find out ahead of time, you know, and at the end, you still have the completed form. For when the day comes in, they ask you for it. And you’re like, okay, whatever here. Is a four point good for is there’s a ton of them. Yeah, unfortunately, the four point is technically only valid for one year, or if anything gets changed. Part of it is is the windmill is valid for five years. But technically, they made the four point valid for one power tool for the industry, so that they can keep every time they rewrite the policy, have someone come back through it and relook at it.

Sergio DeCesare: 16:18

Well, in all fairness, I guess things could change, like an AC can break down. I mean, that stuff happens all the time, especially down

Rick Kooyman: 16:23

here. Yeah, it just goes back to that presumptive coverage, you know, that we all grew up with, where you’re just like, I don’t know, you just call and get insurance and whatever. And now, insurance is difficult.

Sergio DeCesare: 16:38

Yeah, and you know, I don’t know what it’s like in other states. Actually. Do you know what it’s like in other states? I don’t know what it is. Well, I guess it’s a Florida thing more than anything else, because I can tell you owning property in North Carolina. Now, I sold that property a year or two ago. But I can tell you, I had a very similar sized house in North Carolina, is the one I have now. And my bill here is 5200 bucks. My bill there was 300.

Rick Kooyman: 17:05

Yeah, no, it’s very much a part of thing. And I can tell you in in defense of a much older veterans in defense of the insurance industry, and this is the reason it’s a Florida thing is the state of Florida by itself represents more in financial loss than the entire rest of the country combined. And it goes back to legal fees and all that other stuff. But that’s why it’s so intensely different down here. Because I mean, that’s a big statement. Right? That’s a that’s a yeah, that’s, that’s what they’re saying. That’s what they’re saying. This state by itself represents a bigger risk to an insurance company than the whole rest of the country. That all of it together, they don’t pay as much as they pay out down here, then you

Sergio DeCesare: 18:01

wonder at what point does it just get so economically unfair insurance in the state? You know,

Rick Kooyman: 18:10

we’re coming to and that’s why I talk about property age, and staying up with this insurance thing. And, and, and getting a little educated on why being a homeowner is a little bit more of a task than it is just a privilege.

Sergio DeCesare: 18:28

Now, maybe it’s the difference between the American dream and the American bad day, maybe a nightmare, but the real American I mean, I mean, look at Florida, it’s become really economically unfeasible? Yeah, yeah. Everybody talks about the migration and, you know, a two or 3% Oh, my God, the whole world is moving here, right. But nobody talks about the migration now with a just last year with 700,000 people. That’s a big chunk. So it was a big chunk.

Rick Kooyman: 19:06

The industry has the wind mitigation. And the whole program of the wind mitigation is a crediting system to try to reduce the rates based on that four point I asked premium that they assess that risk to be and then they go back and say, Well, according to the widmet, you meet these upgraded things that we would like to see because of this Florida weather. And you know, this this unique condition that we live in down here and these problems we have to deal with. So if you have these improvements and the structure is modified a little better than the original older stuff, is they’ll they will acknowledge and give you a discount on. But even on that end, now they’re getting way more strict on where those discounts apply and what right.

Sergio DeCesare: 19:55

Real quick explain to everybody what a win mitigation report is.

Rick Kooyman: 20:00

A wind mitigation report is a study that describes, basically houses assembled and what materials was it used? So they want to know what kind of doors and windows are there? Are they impact rated? If not, are there shutters? If there are shutters? Are they large missile rated they small missile rated? Are they not rated at all? Are they Florida approved? I mean, all these little nuances now suddenly matter. It used to be like, Oh, you got wood shutters that you handmade and you put up when the storm comes? That’s cool. We’ll give you a discount for that. And it’s literally on the form. But they have not given a discount out anymore. I can promise you that.

Sergio DeCesare: 20:42

Why do you think that is why when they give a discount for for a protective item?

Rick Kooyman: 20:46

Well, for the plywood thing, particularly because at this point, everything has to be like what we call a Florida approved product, meaning it has what we call a notice of acceptance, or an NLA. And that product went through Florida approval testing, where they stand. And they literally shot two by fours at eight times. Every product, every window, every door, everything that says it’s hurricane rated, goes through this testing procedure. And this is where a large missile comes from and small missile and blah, blah, blah, these testing standards. So at this point, they want the biggest and the best they want large missile. And that’s it. That’s the full two by four.

Sergio DeCesare: 21:35

That’s right. I think what they were they do is that what 90 or 100?

Rick Kooyman: 21:40

Our tests? Yeah, yeah. Basically, it’s an air cannon. That’s four out of it. Yeah.

Sergio DeCesare: 21:47

It’s in crazy stuff. Okay.

Rick Kooyman: 21:48

It’s basically 100 mile an hour impact.

Sergio DeCesare: 21:51

So the wind mitigation reports

Rick Kooyman: 21:52

the insurance, so yeah, it’s it’s windows and doors. It’s how is your roof attached? Meaning the trusses right to the walls? Because we want to keep the roof on the wall and the big thing. And then the second layer of the roof is the roof deck. So how is the roof deck now attached to the truss that’s attached to the wall? And then how is the roof covering? What is it? How old is it? And how is it attached? So we can start to see where this is all going? Right? We’re looking at durability stuff here, you know? And then it goes back to well, what building code is it built to? How old of a house? Is it? Exactly? You know, that’s a question. And all these things amount to discounts on this forum, or they amount to hire policies on your property, which is why I bring up these topics about each and four point and understanding these things. And I keep saying it over and over again, that what used to be is no longer the case. And what goes on North Florida is north of Florida. Right minutes will be another planet. Yeah, it might as well be because it doesn’t mean anything here. Let’s move on

Sergio DeCesare: 23:06

to roof certificates.

Rick Kooyman: 23:09

Yeah, roof certificates are almost non existent anymore. And that’s funny, because the roof certificate specifically is simply the roof section of the four point form. So taken out and made into its own separate form. It’s the same thing. It’s the same questions. And it goes back to that topic where you were talking about your roof, where we used to be able to go out and say, based on our expertise, that yeah, the roof is this old, but it’s in good shape. It doesn’t have these problems. We expect it to live another five 810 years? Well, one, we got to understand what numbers are defined as when we say those now because if I say it’s good for five years, the insurance industry goes Okay, we’re done now. And you’re like what I have for five more years. And they’re like, Yeah, with no insurance. Like, five years, your expectancy

Sergio DeCesare: 24:06

on your roof is not enough anymore. No, to insure it right now for a year, they’ll give

Rick Kooyman: 24:13

you one year on a five year life expectancy. They used to go they used to go to three, they were given a one they would write you a one year policy on something that we would say it’s at the end, but you know, it’s going to be in the next three to five years, this is going to be due to be replaced. And they go okay, well, we’ll write a one year policy, limited coverage on a roof side of things, of course, because you know, we’re not going to buy you a new roof on this old deteriorated roof, but we’ll write your coverage policy for the rest of the structure. And they’ve taken that now to five meaning they’ll do one year on a five year estimate. And honestly, that roof certification form it used to allow us to say that your metal roof that you know The product is a 50 year product, your roof chart says that the roof is 65 or 30 years of age. Again, it goes back to the underlayment. But they don’t they’re the assessments aren’t being read anymore, they’re not being heard. The roof certification thing is really just, hey, we want to know how old it is we want someone to actually go out, verify is anything missing from it, and write down with their license number. When was it installed? I want to know the math. And that’s the end of the conversation.

Sergio DeCesare: 25:39

So there’s not even a point in buying a 25 or 30 year shingle or even a 50 year shingle, I know they have those as well, there’s no point it because at the end of the day, the insurance company’s gonna make their judgment call. And even if you have five years left, they’re going to treat you like you got one year

Rick Kooyman: 25:58

left. Yeah, that’s crazy. Man. It is really unfortunate, but honest to God, it is mostly true to say that, while some super expensive metal roof, or high finish, you know, co coated tile roof that, you know, amazingly awesome. That should be a 50 year roof. There’s nobody on this date that will ever give you a policy to cover it for that amount of time. So as when we are i We love this I go I’m certified by the same people that the roofers get certified through so that I can go up and say, you know, I know what’s going on, just like you guys do. Okay, so I’m in the same room with them all the time for the trainings. And I asked, you know, they asked, well, what would you what would you put on your house? 30 years shingle. And this story, why would I spend any more money, right? I’m going to put the best product for the lowest cost that is going to do what everything else is going to do. You’re only getting virgin everything else that you’re going to give our Matt. That’s my polarity or shame. So if I buy the Taj Mahal, my 30 year shingles still the same value.

Sergio DeCesare: 27:17

Right? That’s

Rick Kooyman: 27:18

crazy. Yeah. It’s a shame. But that’s that’s just how this has come down to shake down to, in this whole gamut of who’s gonna pay for what?

Sergio DeCesare: 27:30

Okay, well, we’ve pretty much covered a lot of stuff on the inspections in the forums. So in a nutshell, what did the homeowners really need to understand based on everything we just said, put yourself now, where you need to be for the homeowner in this.

Rick Kooyman: 27:51

Yeah, this is my message. And most most homes I go into for the four point is the standard 20 year old house or whatever, and the valves aren’t really leaking in the house is in typical average condition, you know, dust in the corner person, whatever, camera from years of storing things here and there. And nobody ever looks at that. But the insurance industry there, it doesn’t need to be actively leaking to them. If it looks like it’s old, if it got blue on it, if it’s got mineral deposits building up on it, these are all indications of age, these are all the things that they’re not wanting to take part in. So, you know, over and over again, I go in and I see old air conditioners, water stains at the air conditioners, water stains, on ceilings, from old loop leaks that got repaired, whether it be a roof or a condensate leak, whatever. I mean, all these things that we all just thought it was my prerogative how I want to live. Now we’ve got this other party that’s coming in evaluating us in a way and saying, You know what, if you want me to put my money up on the board with this stuff, I’m going to ask for newer things here. And that’s what’s catching most people off guard. And that’s why I really want to get the word out to just you know, don’t wait, don’t wait. It’s only a couple of 100 bucks. Don’t you don’t want to find out when you don’t have insurance that you need to spend 10 grand to have new pipe put in or five grand to have a new panel or 17

Sergio DeCesare: 29:25

grand for an agent or square foot house on a roof Yeah, I mean 17 grand I mean that’s very low love oh my god I almost had a stroke when they told me was gonna be 17 grand like it’s very low. Go North Carolina. That house I talked about for the insurance. I replaced that roof how much it cost me Yeah, yeah know we’re panels building or something. Yeah.

Rick Kooyman: 29:58

Yeah. Typical shingle home roof is in the 20 1000s. And is in the upper 30s, low 40s. Something’s

Sergio DeCesare: 30:08

got to change because there’s a whole slew of people out there who can’t afford 20 grand for a roof just to get insurance.

Rick Kooyman: 30:16

Well think about I go into these neighborhoods, and the whole development is the same, you know, they all got the same. And everybody’s like, no, they’re fine. And I look at it, and I go, the whole neighborhood’s about to go. And that is, the whole neighborhood’s about to get reroofed. Because they’re all gonna go like dominoes. Like, they’re all the same age, they’re all gonna get the same notice, whoever it is their underwriters might be, it’s all gonna go down the same course. It’s just a shame. But yeah, I get it all the time where the you know, the homeowners are resistant? Let’s put it that way. No, it’s not my opinion. It’s not your opinion. It’s not anybody’s opinion at this point gets to write the rules, and how we get to play the game.

Sergio DeCesare: 31:10

All right, well, you heard it right from Rick. And Rick is probably more qualified than anybody I know, to make the statements and the advice he’s giving, we covered with mitigations, we’ve covered four points, we covered roof certificates. Rick, I’m assuming you can do roof inspections. If you go out there and take a look at stuff. I

Rick Kooyman: 31:29

do roof inspections on roof replacements, believe me. You know, just because it’s brand new doesn’t mean that they did a good job. And not only that, it’s so easy to, to do the minimum, they get they get it they say well, it may past it, we build it the code. Code is the minimum. Right? You can do better. It doesn’t mean that you had to spend a lot more. But you could have done a couple little things here and there that make a whole lot of difference. Right? And these steps are now being skipped. It’s just not there’s not pride, taking in numbers work when you’re doing high volume stuff, that you look around and you’re like, I don’t know, the roofs kind of don’t look the same anymore, that they’ve used to be prettier somehow. It’s probably true. Yeah, that our attention to detail is gone. And they meet the minimum standards. But yeah, roof inspections for sure. Old Ones new ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, lots of them. Please.

Sergio DeCesare: 32:33

You do the four points, you do the wind mits. So why don’t you tell them how they can get a hold of you.

Rick Kooyman: 32:41

You can find me online at trade secrets. inspections.com you can email me at Rick at trade secrets. inspections.com Or you can call text 239-537-1186. I will get to you as soon as I can. I don’t always answer it right away. But I call him right back. A great.

Sergio DeCesare: 33:03

So we’ve got a couple more topics coming to be sure to check in and the topics that are coming up. We’re gonna be very, very interesting. So stay tuned. Yeah, we’re gonna, we’re gonna dig into some real good stuff on the environmental side of things and our health issues and living in our homes. It’s more than just looking at it. Right. Hey, Rick, thank you. Take care. Great

Rick Kooyman: 33:26

talking to you Sergio till next time.

EP #2: Building Codes and How They Affect Properties

Sergio DeCesare: 0:00

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: 1:36

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: 3:40

each state. When you say the water like are you talking about like a water that’s in the city water system,

Rick Kooyman: 3:46

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: 8:15

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: 8:51

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: 9:56

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: 10:14

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: 11:33

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: 12:10

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: 12:55

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: 13:17

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: 14:39

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: 14:55

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: 15:15

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: 16:09

That’s what I call Florida math.

Sergio DeCesare: 16:11

Florida math.

Rick Kooyman: 16:13

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: 17:27

One more year, not five, oh,

Rick Kooyman: 17:30

no,

Sergio DeCesare: 17:31

this is what I’m trying to explain.

Rick Kooyman: 17:33

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: 18:55

So it doesn’t matter what the Yeah, right. So that’s great. But the the media this is where

Rick Kooyman: 19:01

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: 19:45

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: 20:15

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: 21:04

Yeah, yeah. Let’s imagine there’s something to be said there about Windows as well.

Rick Kooyman: 21:09

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: 22:04

More or less? Yeah. Know, more or less, more or less? Yeah, well, we use here.

Rick Kooyman: 22:15

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: 22:32

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: 22:50

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: 23:52

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: 24:09

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: 24:28

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: 24:41

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: 25:21

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: 25:39

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: 26:18

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: 26:36

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: 26:49

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: 27:21

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: 27:39

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: 27:54

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: 28:15

I tell everybody what a PowerPoint is real quick, because we use the term some people. Yeah,

Rick Kooyman: 28:19

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: 28:51

Rick, tell me your website. It’s a great website. I’ve been to a many times

Rick Kooyman: 28:55

trade secrets inspections.com And you can give me at 239-537-1186.

Sergio DeCesare: 29:02

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: 29:25

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: 29:42

Okay, Rick, thanks a lot, and we’ll catch you on the next one.

Rick Kooyman: 29:46

Awesome. Thank you