New happenings

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Home Inspections by J. A. Thibodeau

• As of January 1, 2010, all New Hampshire Home Inspectors will be required to be licensed by the State of New Hampshire. Home Inspections by J. A. Thibodeau is licensed by the State of New Hampshire to perform home inspection.

• It gives me great pleasure to announce that I have received the designation of "New Hampshire Certified Septic System Evaluator".

• 2009 Maple Syrup will be available soon. Visit our Maple Syrup page located in the lower portion of the left column.

• We've recently linked with Zillow.com. Now you can find what homes are selling for in your neighborhood. Just type in any zip code to find home prices for that area.

• We are pleased to announce that we have recently added a product recall list from the US Government. Look for the heading "Product recall list" in the listings to the left. Have any of your household products been recalled?

• We've made Google Maps and MAPQUEST available on our site.

• We now have Gift Certificates available for the holiday season as well as other occasions.

• We now accept all major credit cards as well as other forms of payments for our professional services.

• I'm very pleased to announce that we have received our new upgraded indoor air quality sampling pump. Our new Zefon Bio-Pump Plus is an advanced portable Battery powered air sampling pump designed for the exclusive use with Air-O-Cell and Via-Cell cassettes. The Air-O-Cell is a cassette designed for the collection of a wide array of aerosols such as mold spores, pollen, skin fragments, fiberglass, insect partials and clothing fibers. The airflow pathway is designed to pull air through the Air-O-CellŪ by a high flow pump and impact the particles onto a transparent adhesive slide in the center of the cassette. This equipment also meets IESO standards for sampling. Should you require any air quality services, please don't hesitate to call for a price quote.

• I've run across some interesting and informative video clips from time to time and I've decided to start an informative media page so everyone has a chance to view them in one location. Please forgive the commercials if there are any. Most are not very long. Check the page out when you have a minute. I'll add to it as often as I can. If any of you know of any videos pertaining to homes, construction and inspections, just let me know and I'll be more than happy to add it to the list with your credit. Thanks and enjoy the vids.

• (Note: This seminar has been rescheduled to a future date. However, registration is still recommended if your interested in attending.) Attention NH Real Estate Agents, please take note: There will be a free course offered entitled "What Every Real Estate Agent Needs to Know about Inspections" on Dec. 6, 2007. Check the link below for further information as to time and place.

  This free course is accredited by the New Hampshire Real Estate Commission for 3 hours of continuing education credits: (http://www.nachi.org/nhapprovalgromicko.htm) New Hampshire Real Estate Commission education credit affidavits will be available.

  Among other things, this course will teach you how to limit your liability as an agent, how to hold a deal together when major defects are discovered, and how to use pre-listing inspections as a marketing tool to move inventory.

  Please RSVP for this free accredited course at fastreply@nachi.org. I will also attend this seminar. Hopefully, we'll see you there.

• I'm please to announce that I have recently completed study in "Advanced Mold Inspection" presented by Environmental Solutions Association of Williamsport, PA. and have been awarded my certification for Certified Mold Assessment.

• In the very near future, we will be offering a substantial savings in Radon and Water Quality tests through the use of volume testing. It will work this way. An area of residential homes will be canvased to determine if a volume of testing can be accomplished. If enough residents desire to have their home tested for radon and/or water quality, savings can be accomplished. As an example, normally Radon test cost our clients between $95.00 and $145.00. With a volume of testing at one time, labor and transportation cost are cut. This savings will be passed along to you. We are looking to offer pricing which will amount to nearly, if not more than, a 50% savings. Should you be interested in being included in this program, please call or e-mail me @ 529-7330 or jtthibodeau@comcast.net to verify that you are interested and you'll be placed on the list of clients to receive this special pricing.

• I'm pleased to announce that we have added one of the best mortgage calculators to our site. Just click on the "Can YOU afford to buy a home?" link to the left. It's a GREAT tool to have so please feel free to use it any time you wish. The calculator will also give you the ability to print out your information including an amortization payment schedule. It's just another helpful tool I can offer you free of charge.

• Home Inspections by J. A. Thibodeau has recently initiated a Buyers Rewards Program. All past customers should contact the office to receive their Rewards Programs certificates.

• New brochures and business cards have arrived. They have been updated to reflect the changes concerning new contact information and our new web site!

• For the home buyer, I recently ran across this tip from Good Morning America. I hope you find it useful. (please cut and paste the following link) http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1763785

• If you've never seen or experienced a home inspection and would like to have an idea what can occur, here's a link for NACHI TV produced by the National Association of Certified Home Inspectors. Just cut and past the following link. WWW.NACHI.TV

• A History lesson

  I've started to see it once again. Maybe we forget and are doomed to repeat the past. During the late 60's and early 70's of the last century. Our local Electrical supplier practically gave you the hardware to install electric heat in your newly built homes. The price of electricity was relatively inexpensive and "READI KILOWATT" (if your old enough to remember the little guy) was looking for way to increase sales. So, why not have a program to entice people to install electric heat. It worked.

  I don't remember what the percentages were but many new homes took advantage of this program. Well, everything was fine for a few years and life was good. New forms of energy were being discussed constructed and nuclear energy was the leader. It was sold as an inexpensive source of electricity with a never ending source of fuel. Well, we all knew what happened then. Regulatory and safety issues caused the price of nuclear energy and generation to sky rocket. Someone had to pay for dismantling of these power plants. So, your electric bill doubled and sometimes tripled.

  And so went the way of electric heat here. But the wave of energy consciousness in construction of these electrically heated homes left an additional legacy. You see, one of the requirements during construction was the installation of a 4 mil. polyethylene barrier between the drywall and the exterior walls insulation. Within a few years, weather using electric heat or not, black specking appeared, in most cases, just above the baseboards of the outside walls. It would continue to grow upwards along the wall until the home owner couldn't stand it any longer and ripped the drywall, as well as the poly sheathing, out of the house and replaced the drywall with new. Those black specks were mold growing in the moist environment the poly sheeting created. The house simply couldn't breath.

  Moisture created by showers, cooking and simply breathing couldn't penetrate the vapor barrier and the mold grew voraciously. Are we creating the same problems today? Are the use of TYVEC and other building moisture barriers causing the same to happen? Are builders saving money by installing fiberglass insulation with no kraft paper backing and covering it all with poly sheeting to keep the fiberglass partials away from the living space? Are the new and cheaper versions of home air conditioning units causing the same problems only in reverse? I think so.

  Look around your neighborhood at some of the newer homes. Most new home are energy conscious and have been constructed to prevent air infiltration. Can you see any discoloration of the siding? Can you see this funny black or green stuff growing out from the overlaps in your vinyl siding or window trim? Are painted areas darker around the windows and doors? Are the corners or lower portion of the siding of your home kept damp by shrubbery? Are there dark spots under your kitchen sink? These are all areas where a "tight" house retains moisture and begs to breath and allowed to dry. And, like you, your house has to breath to remain healthy. If you see these signs, you have a better idea of what your looking at now. Please remember that simply killing the mold with the use of strong chemicals will not solve your problem. Dead mold is as dangerous as live mold! I Hope this little walk through history is somewhat helpful to you. If you suspect you have mold growth around your home, please contact me or another Certified Mold Inspector to confirm your suspicions. There are Thousands of different mold species. Some may be benign and some may be very dangerous. Consider your family's health as well as the health of your home.

  • With the company's recent membership to National Association of Certified Home Inspectors, much additional information is available to our clients. Many items will be added or transfered on a daily bases so please drop by this section to see what going on.
  Jerry Thibodeau

  New Boston, NH, New Boston, New Hampshire Home inspections.

  new boston area home inspector.