Todd Stromdahl has been the owner of Detailed Home Inspection for two years. His experience in a home construction and repair runs the gamut: electrician, painter, flooring and countertop installer, woodworking and roofing.
HIS HISTORY?
He was an electrician on helicopters in the Navy. He then was a painter for the Ritz-Carlton in Naples and then spent several years fabricating and installing custom stone countertops and floors. In 1994, he and his wife moved to North Carolina, where they bought their first home and restored it over the next eight years. When he wasn’t repairing something at home, he worked for Century Furniture making 18th century reproduction furniture. He then worked at Alcatel Fiber Optic Cable until the 9/11 attacks slowed business down. He took a job with Owens Corning Roofing in Jacksonville and worked with 3-tab and architectural shingles.
“This experience has given me a thorough education on roofing shingles and their installation.” While he was working at Owens Corning Roofing, he started doing home inspections and woodworking on the side. Eventually, he realized the corporate world wasn’t for him, so he decided to go into business for himself and opened his own home inspecting company.
WHY DID HE BECOME A HOME INSPECTOR?
“Becoming a home inspector was a natural step for me. I have always looked at homes a little more closely than others. It’s just a passion for detail that I have always had and a feeling that a home should be more than a box we live in. I just can’t turn it off.”
HOW DID HE GET INTO HOME INSPECTION?
While working at her job as receptionist and bookkeeper at Prudential Chaplin Williams Realty, his wife Susan was talking with a few Realtors about home inspecting. “They were saying that they need to find a good home inspector that does this, this and this and understands what they are up against as real estate agents. She told them that her husband would be perfect for that. So, she came home and told me about it. I sat on it for six months and then decided to do it.”
WHAT IS SOMETHING THAT REALTORS CAN DO TO HELP HIM IN HIS JOB?
“Be realistic that no home is perfect. I hear ‘Oh, you probably won’t find anything’ a lot. But, every home has secrets. As a home inspector, I’m supposed to go where most homeowners will never go like crawl spaces and attic crawl spaces. When I do find issues, a good real estate agent will know that there are issues and that those issues need to be brought to the table before the deal. Some people get really upset. Realtors need to give their buyers realistic expectations. They need to tell the buyer that this is a new home and there may be a few minor details that need to be ironed out or that this is a 30-year-old wood home and the expectations are that there may be something that we don’t know about.”
BIGGEST ISSUES FACING HOME INSPECTORS?
Stromdahl said he thinks licensing in the future is going to be a big deal. “Home inspectors have not been forced to have the level of education or carry errors and omission insurance before. I think it is going to hurt a lot of people if they write the law to where they are forced to carry errors and omission insurance.” He has carried error and omissions insurance at $4,000 a year since he started. “It was a business decision that I felt was the cost of doing business.”
BEST PROFESSIONAL ADVICE EVER RECEIVED?
Stromdahl said his mother told him, “If you want to do it, just do it. Life is short. You have to be brave and just jump in. What’s the worse that could happen? Your business could fail and you just go and do something else.”
ADVICE FOR NEW HOME INSPECTORS?
“Be thorough. Talk about everything and write down everything you talk about during the home inspection. Even if you talk about something in passing, write it on the report. Document everything and be detailed. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of the homeowner or Realtor.”
- by Michele Newbern Gillis