Ontario Association of Certified Home Inspectors
17-7000 Macleod Road, Suite 285 L2G 7K3 Niagara Falls, ON, Canada

Sewer Backflow Preventers (backwater valve) are an important, butfrequently overlooked device in modern homes. Here's how they work and why they should be maintained.

OREA is frequently seen publishing adverts on TV about SAS type soldiers jumping through windows with the claim that Realtors find things that will protect you when you purchase a home. Then they should be able to look at a foundation wall and identify its makeup. Not just opt for the lazy :Unknown: checkbox when loading the listing into the MLS. If you want the truth about the home you are wanting to purchase, get a Professional Home Inspection.

Here is a good news story about a Home Inspection.

Now the market has started to settle, I wonder if we'll start to see these signs popping up everywhere?

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Too many people are paying over the odds for homes only to find out, too late, that what they bought is not what they thought they were buying. A $600 investment in a professional home inspection can save you $000's in a normal market, and up to several hundred $000's in this crazy, over-inflated one.

Determination of actual existence of mould is not required, but concern for the potential of mould is not out of scope. It should ALWAYS be reported where suspected, with further inspection and corrective action as required recommended.

Sometimes you've just got to call out cosmetic concerns!!

As businesses reopen staff and customers may have differing views on personal space, increasing the risk of conflict. Signage and employee training is a good start, but what happens if your customers refuse to comply with your social distancing restrictions? What can you do to keep yourself and your customers safe? HUB, our preferred insurance provider, has provided an on-demand webinar. Their experts provide guidance to help you create a conflict prevention strategy for your workplace. Register here: https://bit.ly/HUB-de-escalate

Don't give up on maintaining the distance. Remain positive! Stay negative!

We will be having our first Virtual Town Hall Meeting tonight at 7 pm (EDT). This will be open to all Home Inspectors in Ontario and will be an open mike session. Three of the topics we will be discussing are, Licensing, COVID-19 the new normal, and how to reduce your risks of ending up in court. You can find out how to get details of the meeting here:... https://ontarioachi.ca/e-chapter-meeting-august-4th-2020-7/

Don't fall for this scam, it's doing the rounds again.

Don't give up on maintaining the distance. Remain positive! Stay negative!

We will be performing a major update of the Association web services over the next 2 weeks. Users may find intermittent outages while we perform full backups of the servers. Once again, Bluehost has been less than helpful. They've taken our money, moved us gradually from shared hosting to cloud hosting and then when that didn't work suckered us into getting a Virtual Private Server. The latest message is that the VPS O/S is coming to End-of-life and they suggest we move our ...services to....Cloud Hosting!! It appears that Shared Hosting, Cloud Hosting and VPS services from @Bluehost are all the same...crap. This major update will be the last we do on @Bluehost and we will be moving our services over the next few months to Private Servers where we have greater control over who accesses the resources. There will be more in our newsletter.

Today is the first day since the lock-down that we believe Home Inspectors can perform residential Home Inspections for consumers. Just because the government has made it legal, doesn't necessarily make it safe. The choice as to whether to or not still remains in the domain of the inspector.... Here are some tips for inspectors on how to protect yourself. https://ontarioachi.ca/covid-19-ontario-stage-one-opening-/

We are hearing more and more stories about the "Legal Position" with respect to Home & Property Inspections in Ontario. When it comes to Residential Home Inspections we think, the remit given to Home Inspectors and the law is very clear. Until the "List of the essential workplaces" is altered or the regulations change, unless you are working directly for a Realtor, we believe the "legal" position is spelled out concisely.... It doesn't make sense, because a Home Inspection poses the same risk regardless of who the client is. We went through this with the WSIB, and we learned then, that a one-size-fits-all regulation doesn't, but it's still the law. The COVID-19 regulations were made to reduce the risk of the spread of the disease. So far they seem to be working. For those that think they have a "legal position" that allows them to work when there do not fit neatly into the regulations remember, a "legal position" is just that, a position, it's not found until tried in court It is what it is, so be aware that if you work for consumers directly, you may be contravening regulations until proved otherwise, and the maximum penalty is $100,000. That's an awful lot of Home Inspections. Links to the regulations: Emergency Management and Civil Protection act: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90e09 Closure Of Places Of Non-Essential Businesses: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/r20119

This technology is probably the most efficient, most effective and most relevant for everyone going forward. With Working From Home likely to become more preva...lent, you can't afford background noise. Use this on your Windows, Mac or Android system and background noise is a thing of the past.

So, you are sitting at home, not inspecting. You want to do something. How about getting your website in tip-top condition for when business picks up again? Members, get a free assessment of your website from ECSSC. Just fill in the form, sit back and wait. Your report will come directly from them, with no strings attached. While free to members of OntarioACHI, this service is available to non-member Inspectors for $195.00 + HST.... https://ontarioachi.ca/improve-your-website/

Here's a lighthearted reaction to some pretty gross statistics. We all know that sneezing is an involuntary reaction, but have a tissue handy or use the inside bend of your elbow so you don't spray water droplets over others.

Remember: You need a CRA Login and a linked bank account, but the whole process thereafter is less time than it takes to order a Tim Hortons drive-through.

There's a big hole that many small and micro businesses fall into that excludes them from one of the packages on Canada's COVID-19 Economic Response Plan. Are you included in the list of those missing out? https://ontarioachi.ca/canadas-covid-19-economic-response-/