"Money In The Bank"

[Jay Markanich]

I received a nice compliment the other day.

The couple with the house where I had diagnosed some leaking with my thermal infrared camera asked me back to take a few more images.  They wanted some "after" shots to show the insurance company.  Smart.

While there the wife said, "You provide a fabulous service.  The pictures you took for us are money in the bank.  The roofer had never seen such a thing.  He could make an exact estimate.  The insurance company said the pictures were indisputable and could see exactly what needed to be fixed.  They agreed to everything.  The roofer said we got more money than we would have without the photos because the problems are more extensive than can be seen with the naked eye."

Well, I agree!

The camera has certainly been money in the bank for me.

I use the RAZ-IR Pro and bought it 6 years ago.  Twern't cheap!  It is about half the price now than it was when I bought it, selling now for around $8K.  It paid for itself inside of the first year.  Now that wasn't easy.  Such technology required a lot of instruction, training, playing with it, training, learning the computer program (not easy for me), and more training.  Not to mention marketing!

It is some parts science and some parts art.  It requires careful interpretation.  My camera, seen here, is about the size of a hamster.  And powerful technology.  That is my famous dog, Bitsy - warm eyes, cold nose.  She can also be seen on my website.

I consider it to be the best arrow in my home inspection quiver.

For a couple of years now I have been saying that in a couple of years all home inspections will come with IR as a part of the service.  I have been wrong about the timing.  New technology requires a mental paradigm shift, for both the consumer and home inspector.  But it is coming.  I remember when moisture meters first came out and nobody trusted them at first.  Few used them.  Now every home inspector necessarily has one.

My recommendation:  take advantage of good technology.  You will probably find it to be money in the bank too.

[Gregory Scheer]

Jay,
No doubt it too is my sharpest arrow I have.  I actually got inspections while in CA that I don't think I would have without IR. 

[Ian Niquette]

It is a very useful tool I will say that. May be in the budget this fall for me.

[Gregory Scheer]

It is a very useful tool I will say that. May be in the budget this fall for me.

Unfortunately we raked two cards to buy the camera and we were on a limb--but the marketing paid off and we were in the black fairly quickly.

[Doug Diller]

Do you guys charge extra for using the camera or is it included in every inspection you do?  Here in Portland I have not seen too many inspectors using them.  I would like to get one but concerned about trying to do too many things at once (since I'm just building my business I want to do the basics right then move on).  About how much extra time does it add to an inspection?

[Jay Markanich]

I know two inspectors, Doug, who do IR with every inspection.  One is in Baltimore and the other in East Texas.  But they charge more for the inspections.  I charge a separate fee and have a separate agreement to sign and a separate report format just for the IR info.

[Gregory Scheer]

I'm with Jay, Doug.  What I found in CA was I could command the same or higher fee than my "many years in the business" colleagues and had an extra agreement for the client to sign.  Here in PA, I'm a little reluctant to say, I've done one home inspection since October, but I've been marketing very hard my thermal capability and the stand-alone thermal inspections are very nice.  The better weather is coming and I'll begin marketing the home inspection side of the house but will pick a couple things like Radon and Mold to trigger responses, and ultimately work. 

The camera was a huge niche for our business--add the camera onto my USAF background as a recce pilot, and I couldn't lose.

Greg