Resolutions fade fast when they aren’t backed by steady habits, so we’re putting structure first: the simple difference between lead and lag indicators, and how that mindset keeps both your business and your house out of trouble. We walk through the weekly inputs that actually move the needle, from outreach and education to checklists that turn big goals into bite-size tasks you can repeat without thinking.
Then we take that same lens to home ownership. Houses don’t have warning lights, and thaw season can be brutal: one warm day after a deep freeze and suddenly sump pumps fail, downspouts disconnect, and gutters overflow right into the foundation. We break down the small, preventive moves that stop big messes: test the pump with a bucket, reconnect and extend downspouts, clean gutters, and make sure grading sends water away from the walls. None of it is expensive, but skipping it can flood a basement, short out equipment, and drain your budget.
We also explain why a periodic maintenance inspection is worth its weight in peace of mind. Pros bring moisture meters, thermal imaging, and the experience to spot slow leaks in attics and crawl spaces before they become disasters. The findings become a practical honey-do list: prioritize essentials, schedule the rest, and build a two-year rhythm that includes radon testing whether or not you have a system. Along the way, we share why septic systems need predictable pumping, how to avoid wrecking a leach field, and how simple skills like caulking and patching get better with practice and save money for years.
Ready to trade emergencies for a calm, low-drama home? Follow the checklist, focus on lead indicators, and keep water where it belongs—outside. If you found this helpful, subscribe, share with a friend who owns a home, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Three-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
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Episode Transcript
Hey everybody, it is Jim and Laura, and what is it?
This is February twelfth whenwe're recording this.
So some people a lot of peopledo.
They they want to have a greatyear.
Like 2026.
Let's have a great, fantasticyear.
It really doesn't matter ifyou're a real estate, you know,
(00:22):
real estate agent, you do homeinspections, you're a plumber,
Dr.
Lawyer, Indian Chief.
It really does not matter.
Homeowner.
Homeowner.
Yeah, homeowner especially.
You need a plan ahead.
And a lot of people makeresolutions.
This I don't have the exactstats, but it's something like
90% of the people who makeresolutions have failed by the
(00:44):
third week in January.
Easily, yes.
Well, you don't want that.
You don't want to be that 90%that fails to achieve their
goals.
So when you're setting goals foryourself, or you you know you
want to want to achieve, youneed to look at what you are
(01:04):
doing every week, if not everyday, to achieve those goals.
So that's what I want to talkabout today.
Is things you can do to planahead, to be successful, to not
neglect things, which willrelate back to houses.
Don't neglect those things.
So here's what I do.
I have this it's called 90.
(01:28):
It's kind of off uh oh, I can'teven.
EOS?
Yeah, EOS.
Based on that, but I havecertain things that I want to
get done every single weekbecause I know if I get these
things done, and if I get themdone, that's my indicator of
(01:49):
what you know, and I'm gettingclose to my goal that is down
the road.
So if I look, say what we did inJanuary.
We had a pretty decent month inJanuary.
If I look at that now, okay,good.
I got those my lag indicators.
This is the ones I got uh is uhthe numbers I got after the
(02:10):
fact, after the results are in.
Lead indicators are what are youwhat what are your numbers of
what you're doing that's gonnagive you the results down the
road.
And between those two, theleading indicators are more
important because they're gonnashow what you're doing down the
road that's gonna help you getyour goals.
The lag, like look at the pastmonth, is just whether or not
(02:34):
you got there or not.
Right.
Or the things you were doingmade it.
It's a made that occur.
So it is so it's like reallylike playing ahead, not not
slacking to last minute gettingthings done.
Like some of the things I do, Isend email out every single
week.
I got this check, there's achecklist here for myself.
(02:56):
Do so many social media postsjust to stay on top and and you
know, make comments, make sureto stay in touch with what's
going on with the real estatemarket.
Number of classes,presentations, podcasts,
meetings, events, doing acertain number of those every
single week.
And Lord, you got somethingsimilar also that you do for
yourself.
(03:16):
Like what are those, what whatare those?
SPEAKER_02 (03:18):
Are there pretty much the same thing?
The writing articles, working onthe website, so very similar.
SPEAKER_01 (03:27):
So with regards to a house, like right now, was it
like 60 degrees yesterday, whichis insane because it was like
negative two a few days beforethat, then it jumps up to 60.
So a lot of that snow hasmelted.
And I if you're a real estateagent, make sure you subscribe
(03:49):
to our email that we send out.
It gives you information onclasses that we're teaching, and
also gives you marketing tipslike the one I had the other day
was hey, snow's going to meltall of a sudden.
You need to check your sumppumps, make their sure those are
working, double check yourdownspouts because all that ice
that we had recently, that stuffcan pull those downspout
(04:12):
extensions off or damage yourgutters, and you want to get
those connected to redirect thewater away.
SPEAKER_02 (04:18):
Or prevent them from pulling off in the first place.
SPEAKER_01 (04:21):
Yes.
And I said that a couple daysago in that email, and even told
the agents, hey, use thisinformation to touch base with
your past clients, showing thatyou care.
But yesterday, I'm I I wasseeing posts where people, hey,
does anybody know a person thatcan replace well replace my my
(04:41):
sump pump because I got a tennishouse and it's flooding.
I'm like, you you know this isgonna happen.
It happens every spring.
Why did you not think ahead totake care of stuff?
SPEAKER_00 (04:54):
Habitation investigation is the way to go
for a home inspection in Ohio.
Trusted licensed home inspectorsfor your needs.
From radon to malt to warranty.
For a great home inspection, youreally can't go wrong.
(05:15):
Visit home inspections inOhio.com.
SPEAKER_01 (05:19):
Just like lesson when we teach CE classes, we
can't go, hey, let's do a CEclass today.
No, the state requires a week.
Three weeks notice.
It's three weeks notice now forall the classes.
Used to be like one or twoclasses we could do fairly
quickly.
SPEAKER_02 (05:35):
It's all of them now.
SPEAKER_01 (05:36):
It's all of them now.
So we have to plan ahead andtake care of our schedule, make
sure it fits.
But you gotta plan ahead, whichtakes me to houses.
If you own a house, you need toplan ahead for your maintenance.
Like look at your car.
Your car has more moving partsthan your house does.
SPEAKER_02 (05:59):
More or less.
SPEAKER_01 (06:00):
I think a house does have more.
SPEAKER_02 (06:07):
I think a house has more.
SPEAKER_01 (06:10):
But you and but you exp uh yeah, I got all confused.
But yeah, how a house has moremoving parts, total parts more
than a car does by far.
But you regularly do maintenanceon your car.
SPEAKER_02 (06:24):
You got a code that pops up or your your oil hit
like the percentage pops up andyou're you know, you're at 60%
oil.
Yeah, you don't have that withthe house.
SPEAKER_01 (06:35):
You know, like every whatever the mileage is 5,000,
8,000 miles, you have to getyour oil changed and you get
your filter changed.
You gotta get your air filterchanged as well about the same
time.
You know, at least check it out,see how dirty it is.
You'll get that error code thatpops up, like, hey, check engine
light and all these codes.
You know what?
Your house doesn't have that.
You do not have an error codefor your house.
(06:57):
Well, the your error code islike, look, I got water storming
down my my roof into my livingroom.
That's your warning light, butthat's that's a little bit too
late for that.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's if you don't takecare of your car, never change
the oil, you're gonna blow yourengine.
Yes.
And you well, it's not gonna getblown just sitting there in the
(07:19):
driveway.
It's gonna get blown whileyou're driving down the highway
somewhere away from the house.
Then it's an urgent situationfor yourself.
Your house does not have warninglights.
You need to have maintenanceinspections done on it.
And if you don't have the timeor the knowledge to get up on
the roof in the attic, under thecrawl space, and know exactly
(07:39):
what you're looking for.
Like you don't have the moisturemeter, you don't have the
thermal imaging, you shouldcontact a home inspection
company.
And if you're in Ohio, Irecommend you contact Habitation
Investigation.
We've won uh Consumer's ChoiceAward last two years in a row.
We've won Best of the Midwestthree times.
We have a very good reputation.
(08:00):
So contact us if you can, if youlive in the area, and have us
come do a maintenance inspectionon your house.
It's basically a whole houseinspection, except for the list.
You're not, you don't have to.
SPEAKER_02 (08:12):
It's not a request to remedy.
You're the one that's it's it'slike a honeydew list at this
point.
SPEAKER_01 (08:16):
Yeah, explain your honeydew list.
SPEAKER_02 (08:18):
So my my honeydew list is what I tell um people
that are buying a house.
You you have the things that youcan not live with, and those are
the ones that you put throughfor your request to remedy.
Everything else becomes ahoneydew list where you guys
work on getting through thatlist.
So, like grading, downspouts,gutters, simple things like that
(08:41):
to just start jumping in arethings that you need to do to
keep up on.
Because if you don't have yourgutters and your downspouts and
your grating all the way fromthe house, you're gonna be
flooding in the basement at thistime of year instead of having a
nice dry basement.
SPEAKER_01 (08:58):
Yeah, and the flooded basement can cost lots
and lots of money, especially ifit's a finished basement or you
flood it floods and damages yourfurnace, your water heater, your
and what about that one time uhwe had a neighbor when we were
living in our old house, andtheir basement flooded six
(09:20):
inches from the electric panel.
Yeah, that's how high that watergot.
SPEAKER_02 (09:24):
That's how high it got.
SPEAKER_01 (09:25):
The same house had terrible grating, no gutters.
Yeah, they had gutters, butthey're useless because they're
totally filled with debris andlittle trees growing out of
them, the downspouts, if waterever made it down the
downspouts, stop six inches awayfrom the foundation.
(09:46):
None of those maintenance thingsare expensive to do, but what
has saved her from having tocontact the fire department to
come pump out her basement andkeep the because I'm sure that
wasn't cheap.
SPEAKER_02 (09:56):
They didn't just do that for free.
SPEAKER_01 (09:59):
I that I don't know.
I'm I can see the first timethey go, all right, it's an
emergency situation, that's whatwe're here for.
But what happens every coupleyears?
No, you've got a problem.
That's it.
That's your house.
You need to take care of thesituation.
So, but it's so much uh morecost-effective to do maintenance
(10:21):
on your house and your carinstead of letting it get
wrecked, and then you then yougotta pay for an overall how
much is a new engine?
A couple thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_02 (10:31):
Yeah, I was gonna say, well, not just a couple
thousand for that, then you'vegot the installation fee on
that.
If you would have just, youknow, put in a quarter two of
oil, that's what, five, tenbucks, as opposed to a couple
grand.
SPEAKER_01 (10:44):
Correct, yeah, a lot better to do it that way.
SPEAKER_02 (10:47):
And if you want to take that and extrapolate that
to a house, let's say you've gota roof leak that you maybe don't
know about, but we come in, wedo a maintenance inspection, and
we're up in the attic and wesee, okay, there's a problem up
here.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Yep.
Well, same thing in the septicsystem.
You're supposed to get thatseptic thing pumped out every
three to five years from aroundthere.
I've heard many stories ofpeople who have never pumped
them out.
Ever.
Ever.
And they're lucky nothinghappened.
But that if that leash field iswrecked, you're you're that's
(11:24):
another like ten, fifteen,twenty thousand dollars.
Depending on what system youraccount is going to require you
to put in to fix that.
It's so much easier to maintainwhat you have versus trying to
fix it, completely correct it.
SPEAKER_02 (11:39):
Well, our our leech field would not be cheap to redo
at all because I think we haveuh at one of the newer
varieties, it's like a chambertype, yeah.
And I so I I don't think thatwould even remotely be cheap to
do.
So maintenance is much betterthan coming back and paying a
couple thousand again to put itback in.
SPEAKER_01 (11:58):
Yeah, it was not the most expensive type, and where
we live is rural where we're atright now, so it wasn't crazy
expensive, but there are noinexpensive septic systems.
But the analogy works forwhatever system you're looking
at in a house, in a car, youhave to maintain it and to know
to know what you need to fix, itall comes to being aware.
(12:25):
So and then being aware comesback to your marketing if you're
for if you're a business, comesyour marketing or maintenance
for your house.
Here's things I need to do myhouse.
Did I change my air filter?
You can have a little checklistsomewhere.
My pilots and surgeons, they allhave checklists for what they
do.
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (12:46):
And they have to go through that each time.
SPEAKER_01 (12:48):
Yes.
There's nothing wrong withhaving checklists.
I got one of every activity I'mgonna do, uh, the goals I want
to do every single week.
And I or you can track back likelast six weeks, they're all
they're all achieved.
You can see the average ofeverything that I've done.
There's a few times it's not notup there.
Like the week of new Christmasand New Year's Day.
SPEAKER_02 (13:10):
Those are always a little bit.
SPEAKER_01 (13:12):
I'm not gonna worry too much meeting all my goals
because no because it's it's theholiday season.
SPEAKER_02 (13:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:17):
But I will on average, I will, I will meet
that goal easily.
Well, I think it's can you thinkof anything else, Laura?
SPEAKER_02 (13:25):
No, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01 (13:27):
Okay, so make a list for yourself goals, but have
your for your goals for yourbusiness or whatever you want to
do, have it like task-orientednow to achieve the results you
want down the road.
Like if the result is I want anicely maintained house, but you
need to make your list now ofthings you're gonna take care of
the house.
You're gonna keep an eye onmoisture, you're gonna change
(13:48):
the air filter, you're gonnahave a home inspection company
do a maintenance inspection soyou know better detail what's
going on.
SPEAKER_02 (13:55):
Well, and if you do those don't know what you're
doing, if this is the firsthouse you've had, an inspection
helps you learn about things.
And then there are some thingsthat practice is just gonna give
you.
You know that you need to caulkaround the sink, you know that
you need to caulk around thebathtub.
It's not gonna look good thefirst couple times you do it,
and that's fine as long as itworks, yeah, and you just get
(14:18):
better as you practice andlearn.
SPEAKER_01 (14:20):
Our old house had plaster and lath walls.
First couple times Laura didwork on that, it was not the
best.
But toward the end, you gotreally nice.
It got pretty pretty good.
Your walls got super nice andsmooth working with that
plaster, and that's a skill thata lot of drywallers do not know
how to do.
Finishers, they do not know howto do that.
SPEAKER_02 (14:39):
Oh, I've I think holes and it looked cool.
SPEAKER_01 (14:42):
Yeah, Laura has the skills, but also if you're a
homeowner, maybe on your your isyour list is to have a
maintenance inspection doneevery two years, which kind of
coincides with getting yourradon test right on level test
every two years, is what the EPis.
SPEAKER_02 (14:58):
Whether you have a system or not.
SPEAKER_01 (15:00):
Correct, correct.
So I think that's about it onthis one.
Make a list of you know thingsyou need to do for your future
results and goals.
Thanks, bye bye.
SPEAKER_02 (15:10):
Bye.
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