As your inspection business grows, one big question comes up: do you keep building on your own, or join a franchise for support and brand power? In episode 59 of The Ride Along, Brad Lowery and Matt Brading talk with Nate Boucher, a Canadian inspector who chose the Mike Holmes Inspections franchise to jumpstart his business.
Nate brings a fresh perspective. He’s working in Ottawa, where licensing rules aren’t consistent, winters bury homes in snow, and efficiency standards keep rising. Instead of starting from scratch, he leaned on the Holmes brand for instant credibility, structured training, and tools that helped him bring new inspectors on board faster.
Here’s what you’ll take away from this episode:
- Why franchising can cut down the time it takes to grow by giving you systems and branding upfront
- How inspectors in cold climates adapt when exterior inspections are limited for months at a time
- Why mentorship and ride-alongs are still the best way to get new inspectors inspection-ready
- How a franchise structure can make long-term exit planning easier
If you’re thinking about your next stage of growth, or whether franchising could help you get there faster, this episode is one you’ll want to hear.
Don’t forget to subscribe to The Ride Along newsletter to get this and more episodes like it delivered straight to your inbox.
Transcript
Brad Lowery
Matt, you ever wondered like how people could possibly live as far north as Canada?
Matt Brading
Canada, was thinking, when you said that, was thinking Oklahoma. That’s far enough for me. Too far.
Brad Lowery
I know, I get gets cold enough. I got relatives in Minnesota and I want nothing to do with going to visit. It is that cold, okay? But people choose to live north of there and we’re talking to one today. Let’s do it.
Matt Brading
through. You know, before we get started, man, I mean, like I got a bone to pick. I mean, I feel like I’m going to I’m going to start doing that right away. You flew to Austin. And I met you there and we spent an entire day sweating our asses off filming. And I mean, where’s the intro man? Where’s the new intro? When are we going to see the new intro?
Brad Lowery
Pick it. I need to – You mean this one? We even jump in, you know, we’ve always for our drink of the day, plugged inspection fuel, and we are going to be announcing something live there that you all watching can get to kind of help out with. And that is that ACC and ISN are coming out with an AI voice assistant. And it’s going to be in development and hopefully released at the end of Q4.
I’m not making any promises on that. It’s not up to me, but we need a name for it. And you guys get to help name it. We’re going to be doing an ongoing little voting poll series over on Instagram. And we would love for you guys to help pick the final name of the forthcoming AI voice assistant. That’s going to be helping you guys and your customers with all of your, back office kind of scheduling needs and things like that. It’s going be pretty cool. So yeah, so that’s kind of a, that’s kind of keep an eye, go visit the Instagram channel. It’s at the ride along show.
Matt Brading
Sounds pretty neat to me.
Brad Lowery
And we’d love for you guys to participate. It’s gonna be pretty. So, butMatt, introduce our guest today, man, because this is gonna be a really fun one to talk about because we haven’t gotten on this topic yet.
Matt Brading
That’s right. That’s right. Our guest today isNate Boucher from, whoa, that right. Did you hear that? I didn’t expect that. Our guest today isNate Boucher from way up in Canada. What part of Canada are you from,Nate? can’t remember. Okay. I don’t know anything of the geography of Canada. it doesn’t like what even time zone are you in?
Brad Lowery
to announce.
Nate Boucher
I’m in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. It’s Eastern, so I’d be the same as like, York.
Matt Brading
Okay, okay. So like, yeah. SoNate from all the way up in Canada does home inspections up there. Also a farming guy. Is it just chickens or all or do you have other wildlife?
Brad Lowery
And here.
Nate Boucher
We got ducks too now. So chickens is definitely the major part of it. We have a garden as well, but and we have a bunch of land that we rent to a local farmer who does the crops. We don’t do the crops at this point, but our goal is just animals and we’re going to continue to expand that. Yeah.
Matt Brading
Chicken and ducks. Nice. Nice.
Brad Lowery
Mean, your growing seasons only like three months up there anyways, right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I saw.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, it’s a little shorter. Yeah. But this winter was really brutal for us.
Matt Brading
I wore my chicken shirt. So,Nate, you have a franchise of Mike Holmes Inspection Company, is that correct?
Nate Boucher
That’s right. Yeah. Mike Holmes inspections. We have a, we’re franchised across Canada. And I was one of the early, one of the first few to be honest in Canada to start off when they first started launching the franchises.
Brad Lowery
That’s fantastic, man. I want to know, and this is what I truly want to get into today, a lot of inspectors, when they’re just starting out, they’re kind of flipping the coin between do I do the independent route, the sole proprietor, or do I buy into a franchise, which is a little more costly up front, but it gives you lot of tools and assets to really kind of jumpstart your business if you choose to go that route. So I would love to know, besides how reduced does your home inspection report get with all that snow? Like can you actually inspect outside or is it interior? Yeah. Yeah, yeah
Nate Boucher
Limitations, limitations, limitations. Yeah. Especially when the winter rolls around like roofing. Yeah, pretty much.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, we’ll see in the spring if there is a spring. Yeah. Yeah. But I would love to know like what have been some of the advantages and what made you choose my columns.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, that’s a great question. So I basically had finished a bunch of my training for it and I was thinking about r amping up and at that point where I’m just going to make that decision of how did I want to start. And I was transitioning out of a prior job as well. So I was trying to find the way to maintain some type of level of income as well as start a new business. Cause whether it’s a franchise or whether you’re going at your own, it’s still just launching a business. Every franchise is going to have a bit of a different kind of, support system. And it’s important to look at that and see what the differences are versus like, you know, usually there’s an initial franchise fee or royalties or whatever their structure is. So you got to do your research on that. For me, there’s really no bigger name than Mike Holmes in this type of industry. And so that was what attracted me to it with regards to marketing. When you first start out, you know, we’ve all kind of been there where you’re trying to market to realtors or clients or whoever you’re, you’re targeting. and you’re like, Hey, I’m Nate from, from Nate’s inspections. And they’re kind of like, cool. I don’t care. And so that name kind of helped get, get my foot in the door a little bit. And, it also has kind of that, that third party side of it where
Matt Brading
Who? Yeah.
Brad Lowery
Who? Yeah.
Nate Boucher
There’s a vetting process for our franchisees and training that comes with that. So that helps, it kind of gives you a little bit of borrowed credibility as well. So you’re sort of starting at a certain point. And so for me,
Matt Brading
So they kind of know like if we’re hiring somebody from my that even a franchise of my homes inspection company, they’ve had a little bit extra training or a little bit. There’s a little bit more of an expectation.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, there’s like a quality control. And not to say that, you know, there’s lots of solo guys out there who do lots of their own training, but you have to purpose to do that. So the quality, you don’t know, it’s, it’s, you’re getting what you get. Whereas for us, it’s like, there are certain steps you have to check off in order to be a Mike Holmes inspections franchisee. And that just kind of lends some extra credibility and extra like experience before you even launched.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, well the name definitely helps for sure. mean, Holmes has been one of the only inspectors to really, outside of social media, break it on mainstream TV, cable networks and things like that. I think the only other guy that I’ve seen on there is like Inspector Projo, which only, I don’t want to discredit that show, but I think that was only on, yeah, it wasn’t, yeah.
Matt Brading
It’s like one season or something.
Nate Boucher
For one or two seasons. But I mean, Mike Holmes wasn’t really a home inspector. He came from the contracting side of things. But he did outside of the homes on homes show, which was one of the biggest ones. They did also have a show afterwards called homes inspections. And that was more specifically, they started every show with an inspection. And often they were going through and looking at like either a past inspection and did somebody miss some things or maybe they didn’t get an inspection and kind of talking about the ups and downs, the ins and outs of that inspection industry. Because in Ontario, I’m in a province that is not a licensed province. So anyone can slap a sticker on the side of their truck and call themself a home inspector. yeah, I think we’ve only got two provinces in Canada that are licensed. And so we still have a bit of that quality control that’s not.
Matt Brading
We still have areas like that here too.
Nate Boucher
Quite there from a licensing standpoint. There’s mixed feelings on that, but yeah, that’s something that we’re trying.
Matt Brading
What does licensing look like up there?
Nate Boucher
I can’t speak to it too much because it’s mainly in the western provinces of Alberta and BC and so that’s kind the other side of the country for me. But there’s, I think there’s some requirements with regards to training. There’s an exam and I think there are some maybe mandatory mentored inspections or ride along type things. I can’t, I’m not 100% sure but I think that’s what it is. I don’t know that the bar is that high but if you’re going through. Like we have all our organizations too, know, much like in the States, is InterNACHI is one of the big ones. In Canada, we’ve got CAPI for all of Canada. Some provinces have their own as well. And those organizations have like standards as well. So if you’re joining one of those organizations, you’re going to have some, checks and balances there as well, which is a great idea. But of course, being non-licensed, you don’t have to join.
Matt Brading
Interesting. So I mean, like, you know, like here, or at least, I mean, in the areas that do require licensing, I should say, cause there’s definitely some areas across the U.S. that don’t, which we have to take the national home inspector’s exam, but that would be for this nation. You guys, what’s the deal with code up there? There’s no building code or you don’t, it’s not the same. There’s, there’s, there’s a difference in code for sure. Right.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, I mean, we definitely have a building code. The Ontario building code, I’ve been the province of Ontario and the Ontario building code is pretty robust. And we also have like a Canadian electrical code, it’s very similar to the NEC, but it’s Canadian. There’s some discrepancies, of course, a lot of the stuff that you’ll see that will be different would be region specific too. are like in my area, know, a lot of things are going to be geared around being in a colder environment. How much insulation you guys have in your attic versus us, it’s gonna be very different.
Brad Lowery
I can imagine. Down in Florida, know, we’ve got this polar, literal polar opposites right from from up in Canada. In fact, we get all your people in the wintertime. When the license plates change here, it’s because the leaves are changing there. so down here, especially with hurricanes and stuff to come through. Roofs down here need to be framed and braced in a certain way and reinforced with hurricane straps and, you know, or clips and things like this in order to, you know, protect against sustained winds. Is it similar up there in terms of, I guess, kind of needing to be overbuilt in order to handle like excessive snow loads or things like that? Or, you know, what would be a difference there?
Nate Boucher
Some of the main things I would say would be how we treat some of the spaces. So when you guys are designing like your HVAC systems, a lot of that is going to be designed around cooling, whereas a lot of ours will be designed around heating. So I and I learned a lot of the stuff by watching videos like Matt’s and people who are in other areas that are very different than mine. You know, when they’re going around scanning things and they’re like, look at this, you know, ceiling register. I don’t have a lot of ceiling registers in my area. Most of them are in the floor and because we’re heating instead of cooling for the most part, or at least that’s our major concern.
Matt Brading
Well, and that has to do with you probably have a lot of basements, right?
Nate Boucher
I was going say we have basements too. was the next point I was going to say. Yeah, almost every house.
Matt Brading
Yeah. We both live in areas where basements are just non-existent.
Nate Boucher
Yeah. Yeah. And I, and so you guys have a lot of your mechanical systems in the attic space. Yeah. Our attic space is largely unused space. It’s usually just all trusses and then we have about twenty inches of insulation.
Matt Brading
That’d be neat, Eric. So I was about to ask that, I mean, trusses, is it mainly trusses or is there like stick frame stuff there too?
Nate Boucher
For new construction, it’s mostly trusses for us.
Matt Brading
So like, you know, cause Brad, you asked the question about snow load and I think like it’s hard to compare it like, because it’s not like Nate, you haven’t been down here in Texas or Florida doing inspections, you know, it’s like, it’s like, how do you differ? And it’s like, well, I mean, how do you differ? You know, like we can go back and forth on that. let me just tell you, like we are, there’s trusses going on. I would say, in new construction, it’s probably 70, 30, 30% trusses. Okay.
Nate Boucher
Yeah.
Matt Brading
In terms of like attic framing. Most of our stuff is stick frame in my area and almost all of our rafters are two by six, 24 on center. Do you, yours differ from that in terms of like size, spacing, or is it like the type of lumber? Like, I mean, I know there’s codes for all this, but I’m just curious.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s all new construction is 99% trusses is from what I see. I don’t see that’s just it. Exactly. I don’t see the stick framing. You might see that in custom homes more, especially obviously if you’ve got like the vaulted ceilings or stuff like that. But like, but yeah, in like the, the main builders, you know, the, production builders, it’s all trust.
Matt Brading
And they’re just engineered for the load. Do you walk up into a custom home sometimes with stick frame attic and be like, what is going on here?
Nate Boucher
Yeah, I mean, I see it. see it. And it was it was more popular for us like 70 and back. So when I see older homes, I see it still. But yeah, I think now almost.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, but how about
Matt Brading
I would imagine your addicts, since they’re not really much in terms of usable space, they’re probably not much in terms of volume either. Like you don’t have, like we have a lot of our addicts here are big, you know, big open spaces, open spaces of ventilate, you know.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, yeah, that’s a good point. It varies. It definitely varies. You’ll see some that aren’t quite as pitched and other ones that definitely have more space. I live in a fairly big house myself. We have a big family here and we have a pretty high attic space. So you see some of the larger houses. It’s just the way it’s going to go, of course, right? But yeah, if it’s like a bungalow, it might not be as big of a space because basically you’re not really using it for anything except for soffit and attic venting.
Brad Lowery
Right. Now, I almost wonder. one of the, we opened the show, we were talking about this down in Austin. The house that we were looking at down there, the guy who designed it came up with this concept called monopoly framing, which is almost a modern take. And correct me if I’m wrong on this, Matt, but it’s almost a modern take on the old rafter and knee wall setup. The way that he
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Brad Lowery
frames it and insulates it. One, it’s designed to be able to you know, handle the load. It’s sturdy, but it also allows for insulating in a way that basically encapsulates the entire attic space. So that way you can kind of better control that airflow throughout the hall. And it just makes it more efficient. Now that’s in Austin, Texas though. Is there any sort of conversation about encapsulating attic spaces up in Canada? Or is that a practice up there or is it just not worth the effort or money?
Nate Boucher
I haven’t heard too much about that, what we do see is like energy efficiency is a big play for us, because of heat loss. It’d be pretty expensive if you’re paying a lot of money to heat your house, right? So yeah, we’ll definitely see things that are like, for me, over the last 10 years, the amount of attic insulation that you require in a new build has gone up a number of times. So like for us, it’s R60. That’s the attic value. You go back like even to the early part of the 2000s and I believe it was like our 36. So it’s basically doubled in the last 10 years. that’s energy efficiency, I would say. Some of the higher end builders will use more techniques to minimize thermal bridging. That’s a bigger one.
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, a lot of the stuff that we’re doing that I would say is a little more cutting edge with that would be around energy efficiency and minimizing heat loss.
Matt Brading
So, you, well, two things. Well, first of all, I feel like we got to touch on this monopoly framing for one second. feel like it probably is at least somewhat, of a thing there. It’s, not really a huge here either. Right. But, but it really isn’t Matt rising or is who you speak of, he actually didn’t create it though. It was actually created by Dr. Joe Steebrick who is up in the Northeast. and so, you know, we’ve got a lot.
Brad Lowery
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Brading
Closer temperatures up way up Northeast to where you’re at. I mean, obviously probably still a little bit different, but they definitely deal with the cold and stuff out there. And it’s really, I mean, whether it depends on whatever your climate is, it’s just a better way of framing a wall to be able to insulate it better. and you know, soffits are weird, right? And difficult to deal with no matter what type of insulation you’re working with. But yet,
you know, we still want overhangs. And so they build a wall that’s basically just like this and everything’s completely sealed and then build overhangs on after the fact. so, but that’s completely sealed. You can just insulate the entire thing, air seal it. And so I can see it no matter what climate you’re in being beneficial seconds, but it’s not a hugely popular thing. Mostly, you know, custom build stuff really is what we’re seeing. We’re seeing that kind of stuff. We don’t come across it very often. I wouldn’t be surprised if it made it up your direction at some point. I mean, it’s a really solid way of making sure that you’ve got a nice tight envelope.
Brad Lowery
Now, honestly, Nate, it’s been really cool. I kind of joined a franchise. It wasn’t a franchise per se, it was BPG inspections. And the whole reason that I even have this job now is because BPG would pay for continuing education. They would send us to conferences. I went to ASHE back in the day. That’s where I met some of the people at Porch originally. And that kind of opened the door for doing this. But
Nate Boucher
That’s it. Okay.
Brad Lowery
You know, that was one of the biggest perks in my book in why I went from an independent company to a larger nationwide firm. Just the added resources. So what does Holmes provide for you in terms of continuing education and, you know, ongoing learning experiences?
Nate Boucher
Yes, that’s a good question. I think some of the initial training is really important because we kind of go through the procedure or our methodology of how we inspect. We provide like a report writing template. So you have to use the template. So there’s restrictions within a franchise. What the benefits are, you don’t have to build a template.
Brad Lowery
Sure.
Nate Boucher
If you built a template, you know that that’s an undertaking. So, and of course they give us like a base for it and we can customize it and improve it from there. So that’s, that’s a great start. And then, I’m doing it right now. Actually, we’ve got a new franchisee from one different area and he’s up with me training. So for a week, when you first start, you are in with an experienced inspector riding along training. And so you get to see the houses, see how we inspect. And this is whether you’ve been an inspector for years or if you’re brand new and you’ve just bought the franchise. So it’s a great kind of training. You kind of get through a whole bunch more than you would. So if you’re just starting out, you know, I guess you can always do your own homes and do your friend’s house, which is what we all kind of do to get our feet wet when we very first start. But you’re there with somebody who can mentor you, teach you how to not just inspect the house, but also write the report, interact with clients, you get to see that in person and how that works. And then we also have like a, we’ve got a good chat group and we’ve got inspectors all across Canada. So, you know, yes, you can go on various forums and whatnot online, but I can punch in a question or put a post a photo in that chat group and I’ll get a number of opinions from some of the guys all across Canada pretty quickly. And there’s lots of experience there because a lot of guys come from different backgrounds, especially in different trades. You we might have a couple guys who are electricians, couple, you know, contractors, a couple guys who are plumbers. I don’t if we have any HVAC guys, but definitely a few guys who’ve been around in various facets. And so you get some good perspectives from different people who have had more of a specialist back.
Matt Brading A
So The Ride Along thing, that’s huge. The franchise requires a certain amount.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, it’s part of the training. So when you come on, you’re basically you ride with somebody for a week. Yeah, so I’ve got somebody with me right now and he started on Monday. So today was day three. And so generally it can take different shapes depending on the season. But generally we try to do an inspection in the morning and then write a report in the afternoon together. So you kind of are on the same page when we’re really busy. Sometimes we’re just plowing through and you’re just seeing.
Matt Brading
It’s a week.
Nate Boucher
Two inspections or so a day, depending on how busy we are. And yeah, and by the end of it, they come out of it with a bunch of inspections under their belt and that mentoring process so that they understand what to look for, how we structure our inspections from like a, you know, where we start, where we go to next, where we finish, and then how we write the report. So that’s all kind of there. And then one thing we also do is once you’re out and live, we do have a report writing additional kind of mentorship thing, or it’s kind of like a due diligence thing where your first X number of reports get sent to somebody who does all the report reviews. They’ll look them over before you send them to clients. And that way we’re ensuring a level of quality and then you will be released to do your own once you’ve kind of passed that. So you kind of have that extra level of mentoring. And then of course you can always
Matt Brading
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Nate Boucher
request a report review if you want in the future and just to see, I’ve been doing this for six months now. I haven’t had to review anything, but here’s one. How am I doing still? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Sometimes you’re running into something you’re like, I’ve never seen this before, but there’s, you know, pile of guys across the country who have maybe seen it in some shape or form and can chime in.
Matt Brading
Had a really wild house. Yeah. That’s pretty cool. Man, you know, Texas, you know, it’s the, the, licensing requirements are pretty stringent. mean, like we have to, you don’t have to have a construction background. Um, but you know, there, was, they’ve lowered it, but it was like close to like 200 hours. It was actually over 200 hours when I first got my license of, you know, certifications that you had to go through before you could even get to the, uh, uh, licensing actual part of it. You had to get all that stuff. Then you had to take the, uh, the exams, national home inspector and the Texas exam. And then you could apply to the state after you checked a few more boxes. But the ride along part, like of those like 200 hours, 40 hours, they call it 40 hours. So guess essentially the same thing as a week, right? But the ride along part at the time, like no one ever told me that I could just try. I don’t know how easily this is achieved, but you can just get, you ride along with a trick approved inspector and literally ride along with them. No one told me that. And so they had ride alongs available at the school that I was champion school real estate that signed up for. But it was a complete joke. Like basically the, we went and we saw two or three houses during this week. Almost all of it was spent in the classroom. And there wasn’t like, you didn’t get the extra like, what somebody do an inspection. You didn’t actually get to see like a completed inspection report. It was a little bit more hands on than the training that we had gotten previous to that. But it was like, man, the ride along part was such a joke. And, know, I I’m training somebody right now too. Like I’m, got somebody rolling with me. He’s been with me. My training process to bring somebody on it’s a hundred inspections. He’s about halfway through right now. And, um, the other day, like it was sometime last week, we were talking about it. Uh, um, and he was just like, you know, he liked me. Thought he was just going to open up his own inspection company and start inspecting homes after getting trained. Now I did that. I’m not saying that I didn’t have like any knowledge of homes or anything, but like I did that and looking back, it’s like completely insane. Right? I mean, I had a couple of people that I could call like a couple of, had a couple of chat groups or whatever, but I didn’t have near the support that you’re, you’re talking about, or like any like hands-on, like let me ride with you type experience, like nothing. And I, you know, just plowed through it and got it done.
Nate Boucher
We have some challenges for her.
Matt Brading
And so now this dude’s rolling with me and he’s like, I was insane to think I could have done this. Like, and he’s just more green than I was when I started, you know? But he’s gonna be great. But he’s like, I could not have done this without the support. And so, I mean, Ride Alongs really are huge. I think what we’ve got going on in Texas right now is a joke. They need to step it up a little bit because I think we threw a whole lot of people, they need to determine, I can or can’t do this. This is completely overwhelming.
Nate Boucher
Yeah. Yeah.
Brad Lowery
Think it’s perfect.
Matt Brading
You know, some stuff like that. needs to be, some, need to do something about that. Sure.
Brad Lowery
There’s something to be said for earning your stripes carrying the ladder.
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Nate Boucher
Yeah.
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Nate Boucher
Absolutely. Yeah. I’ve got a guy who works with me now as well. And like, so I did the same thing. He, you he rode with me for, for a number of months actually, before he was out on his own and he was really comfortable. And by the time he was on his own, like, I know I wasn’t going to have any problems with him. He was able to basically do those inspections with me, just sort of sitting back and watching. And now he’s, he’s excellent.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, perfectly helpful.
Matt Brading
Yeah. That’s fantastic. It’s a good feeling when you got somebody out there in the field working and like the work doesn’t have to shut down just because you’re not out there doing the work. That’s fantastic. That’s a really good thing, Yeah. Yeah.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, that’s it. You actually want to take like a week off or something like that.
Brad Lowery
So did, has the franchise model helped you at scaling the business in terms of like speeding up the timetable that you’d be willing to bring people on because they have those same resources that you benefited from or?
Nate Boucher
Um, yes, I would say to a degree, the, so I was the, the, the, the homes inspections franchises is actually relatively new. Um, they were doing the, they were doing like Mike homes inspections in the Toronto area for like 15, maybe 20 years or so before they launched franchises. So their processes were set, but franchising started in 2021. So that portion, that portion of the business, was a little bit newer. So I’m one of the first guys to bring somebody on. So I was kind of guinea pigging that for a lot of people too, and kind of developing that technique. I came from a background prior my previous job, I was managing a service territory. So that was kind of my background really was hiring, coaching, training and developing new people. Different industry, but same principles with regards to the training aspects. So that’s kind of been a benefit for me. But yes, I mean, we get to utilize the same resources, right? And then for me, one of the other things about the franchise was being like a verifiable third party. At some point, if I want to exit the business, not that I have any plans anytime soon, but whatever I’ve built might be a little easier to sell versus trying to Inspector Nate franchise or Inspector Nate’s inspections without Nate. It’s a tough sell. So yeah, so that was one thing. Yeah.
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Brad Lowery
Right, right. How do you offer when a book of business? No, that’s awesome.
Matt Brading
So, you talk about bringing somebody on like freeing up some time to take off and stuff. that immediately leads me to like a pivot here because I’m going to be taking some time off, early next month to head to New Orleans for the Inspection Fuel conference taking place to eight through the 10th. Really looking forward to that. And, and to that, I feel like we should talk about the drink of the day because I have something I want to bring up.
Brad Lowery
All the good, do it.
Matt Brading
I have something that’s kind of cool. You know, I, every once in a while and not often, but every once in a while, it’s actually been a while now, but I’ll have a client that gifts me a bottle. Um, and, and so this is one that was a gift. Like I say, if you’re listening, it’s been a while, so I could use another one. Uh, if anybody wants to give me a bottle, um, uh, this is like I say, these are clients that do their home inspections and they just think I should have a bottle sometimes. So this, is by Penelope and it is a straight bourbon whiskey toasted. It’s like a, I don’t know if you’ve ever had toasted bourbon, but and so anyway, yeah, it is hundred proof. So it’s pretty stout, but not too stout, but it’s definitely got something different going on with that toasty flavor. But anyway, cheers to you.
Brad Lowery
Yeah. Now is that very similar to, is that very similar to Basil Hayden’s toasted because I think they use like a rice base instead of a rye.
Matt Brading
I haven’t had theirs, but I have had a Belfort which has, it’s got like toasted, what is it? I think it’s made with toasted pecan wood or something like that. And it kind of has a little bit of that thing going on.
Brad Lowery
Excellent, Yet, Nate, don’t know, did Matt prep you for the, for the drink of the day segment? Epic fail. That’s okay. I didn’t either, man. I’m sorry about that. Yeah. So this is a segment where usually, you know, we’re recording this in the evening and I’ve already worked a full day. So we’re like, why don’t we crack open a cold one or, you know, pour a little, a little double on the rocks, you know, and, so anyway, what’s your go-to to be sipping on when you’re relaxed at the end?
Matt Brading
He did not.
Nate Boucher
No, no, but that’s okay. That’s okay. Yeah, makes sense. I’ll be honest, so now I’m not much of a drinker anymore. But in my young
Matt Brading
He says that like he was just a wild one back in the day, too. Yeah, all right. I didn’t know that.
Nate Boucher
Why, I don’t want to say why, but I played in a band for about15 years, so a little different.
Brad Lowery
Another musician let’s go
Nate Boucher
But yeah, I always enjoyed a Canadian rye.
Brad Lowery
There you go. Yeah, y’all do got some good spirits up there.
Matt Brading
Nice. They do, they do.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, one of my favorites was like Crown Royal had one called the Northern Harvest. It was like a, I think it won like a rye of the year and it was like a $35 bottle somehow. And everybody was like, wow, this is unbelievable. And it was like a nice cheap one that was still really nice.
Brad Lowery
Uh-huh. What was the one that was featured so often in Mad Men?
Matt Brading
Pendleton?
Brad Lowery
Now he was a Canadian.
Matt Brading
Fentelton’s Canadian?
Brad Lowery
Sure.
Matt Brading
I don’t think I, I never really watched Mad Men. I just came up with the first Canadian whiskey I could think of that wasn’t Crown Royal or Canadian Mist. Wasn’t that one? I’ve never had that. That’s garbage. Completely. This is terrible. This is terrible. I mean, Crown’s some good stuff and Pendleton’s great too.
Nate Boucher
Canadian club.
Brad Lowery
Yeah.
Nate Boucher
I don’t know, doesn’t sound good.
Brad Lowery
Now I keep having to. I know I do have a little Crown in the cabinet. I should have grabbed that. I’m just sipping on iced tea tonight because I, for the past week, have been dealing with some kind of crud. I have no idea what it is.
Nate Boucher
Mm.
Matt Brading
That man, I hope you get well, but there’s an awful lot of times that I’m the only degenerate out here drinking bourbon or whatever left out here to carry the load myself.
Brad Lowery
Yeah. You wait until inspection fuel man, we will be in the heart of my favorite cocktail, which is a Sazerac.
Nate Boucher
We’ll all join you in solidarity in a different way, Matt.
Matt Brading
Look at that. That is a good looking hat, Really. That is 100 % the only one that exists in Canada. That is an original right there too.
Brad Lowery
Hey!
Nate Boucher
As far as I know, this is the only one that exists in Canada.
Brad Lowery
You know, I will.
Nate Boucher
He went to send me one. asked him to send me one and then it was such a pain in the ass. He’s like, I’m never shipping this to Canada ever again. So don’t lose it.
Matt Brading
It costs more to ship it than it costs to make it.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, I don’t know how that happened. That’s crazy.
Brad Lowery
All right, so wait, we’ve got some special ride along hats that are coming out, Matt. They have been acquired for us for inspection fuel. So Nate, if you can make it, anybody that’s been on the show gets a free ticket. We can’t cover the room and flight and all that, but we get you free admin. Yeah, and we’ll give you a show hat.
Matt Brading
I like the sound of that. Yeah, you gotta travel yourself.
Nate Boucher
It’s okay, I’ll just bunk with you guys.
Brad Lowery
There you go, man. That’s it. One big happy down here in the big easy. Love it, man. Love it. It is. It’s going to be awesome. Does Canada do conferences like inspection wise? Like I know InterNACHI’s probably got some chapters up there.
Matt Brading
It is going to be a good time though.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, so I’m a member of, with InterNACHI, I’m also with CAPI, the Canadian Association of Home and Property Inspectors. They do a conference annually. And also with Mike Holmes Inspections, we do kind of our own thing. So it’s still kind of a conference for sure. And we do similar things with, you know, extended education and we have vendors come in and whatnot. We have people across Canada. So yeah.
Brad Lowery
Nice. Very cool. Well, I know we’ve got a couple from homes that might be coming to Inspection Fuel. I don’t remember who they are, but our coordinator that works with y’all, because y’all use HIP, right? Home Inspector Pro. Yeah. We don’t talk about them much on this show, unfortunately. They’re part of our brand of businesses. But yeah, we usually end up talking about ISN. But no, you guys are one of Home Inspector Pro’s.
Nate Boucher
Okay. We do use him, yes. Yeah.
Brad Lowery
Biggest clientele out there. I know, so I know we’ve got a couple.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, we jumped on a couple of years back and yeah, yeah, we’ve been on the hip train for a little while and yeah, it’s working great for me.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, we love it.
Matt Brading
Nate sent me a message because he got an email notification of our podcast a couple of months back and he was like, great. Now I got to see you guys in my email.
Nate Boucher
Yeah. Yeah.
Brad Lowery
Someone said the thing because we’ve been on the back of a magazine and stuff too. So it’s like
Nate Boucher
Yeah, well, didn’t tell anyone I was doing this. So like, if you send one out and my face is on it, then it’s gonna land and everyone from our company and they’re gonna be like, what the hell? Hopefully I don’t get in trouble.
Brad Lowery
Alright, let’s go.
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Brad Lowery
We might need to do a one-off just for that guys. Seriously. I love it. I love it, man.
Matt Brading
I got compared one time to Mike Holmes. Actually, somebody from Canada told me you are like our Mike Holmes down there in, in, in the U S and I wear that like a badge, right? I have only been told once, but I, that I’ll take it, but I didn’t get told that a long time ago. So I, maybe I’m part of the family. don’t know.
Nate Boucher
Okay. Yeah, there you go. I’ll see if I can get Mike to do it and it’s not supposed to do that for you.
Matt Brading
That would be funny. It reminds me I’ve prepared a few questions for Nate. So Nate, have you ever met Mike Holmes?
Nate Boucher
Okay. Yeah, yeah, I have. was at our first conference that we did and we, yeah.
Matt Brading
I actually knew the answer to that. I just thought I would ask it on air. I have met him too, but he wouldn’t remember. He was at the International Builder Show and I walked by like, hey Mike, I’m Matt. And he was like, yeah, whatever, where to go. So anyway, there’s And that’s it. And that’s the questions that I prepared. Yeah.
Nate Boucher
Are you really doing research on this?
Brad Lowery
Man, that was a riveting, riveting series.
Matt Brading
I didn’t actually prepare anything. It was just like at my phone screen. Go figure.
Brad Lowery
I love it man, I love it. Well, Nate, you gotta get your own show through their network, man. I Holmes Junior’s got his show, we gotta get you one, come on.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing for a while. And if that continues to turn heads, who knows what happens. But yeah.
Brad Lowery
Yep. Speaking of that, know, doing what you’re doing, give everybody a quick drop on where they can follow you because you got quite a following, man.
Nate Boucher
For sure, yeah. I’m on Instagram as my main platform at,Inspector Nate. And I’m also on Facebook as well. I believe it’s Inspector Nate. If you search Inspector Nate, it’ll come.
Brad Lowery
Very cool, man. Very cool.
Matt Brading
Yeah, I’ve been following you for a while, Nate. Nate puts out some great content. So for those of you out there that are not following him already, definitely check it out. I got some great stuff up there. You do a good job with the videos for sure.
Nate Boucher
Thanks, I just try to have fun with it more than anything.
Matt Brading
I mean, that’s really what it’s all about, man. I mean, honestly, that comes through to me more than, than, you know, when you see people that are either trying to do something maybe beyond what they’re capable of, or just trying to be too serious or something, man. I just like when it’s fun. And a lot of your stuff is just kind of really lighthearted and fun.
Brad Lowery
Dude, life is too short to make boring, non-fun content.
Nate Boucher
That’s just it, honestly. And you you try and do something serious and everyone jumps all down your throat and it’s like, I don’t need that in my life. I’ll just do something silly. And then it’s like, if you get mad at that, you look like a jerk. So who cares? Yeah.
Brad Lowery
There’s a couple of them out there. Yeah. But anyway, very cool, man. Well, Nate, thanks so much for coming on the show, dude. It’s been a pleasure. you know, I would love it if you could come on down to Inspection Fuel. But if not, then, you know, hopefully we see you out there on the road one of these days.
Nate Boucher
Yeah, that would be great. I’d love to see you guys as well.
Brad Lowery
Very cool.
Matt Brading
We’ll have to do a Ride Along show in Canada. Yeah, no, maybe not.
Brad Lowery
In the snow. Let’s just go all out with it.
Nate Boucher
I mean, I would say if you’re going to visit, don’t come in the winter, but I don’t want to tell you how to live your life.
Matt Brading
Yeah, I was thinking no.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, there’s, you know, got the Mason Dixon line, but there’s another line just north of that, that it’s decided by everybody else saying you need to come back in the summer, right? Like there’s a need to come back in the summer line. And it’s because it goes, I hear it from Seattle all the way to now Ottawa, you know,
Nate Boucher
Hahaha. Yeah. Well, when I first started inspecting, was inspecting privately for an engineering firm and most of my work was up in the Yukon. So that was cold, especially in like November. Yeah.
Brad Lowery
Man, I can’t imagine.
Matt Brading
Like honestly, man, like how do you get it done in that time? I mean, for me, I mean, I guess, like, I guess we were talking about this a little bit earlier, right? There’s a lot of, there’s gotta just be a lot of limitations, right?
Nate Boucher
There’s limitations. Yeah. The market is slower. Like, you know, we, know that we’re not going to be doing tons of inspections in the winter, but yeah, it’s like, you know, if your roof is fully covered, obviously one of the most important parts is inspecting from the attic to see if it’s leaking and see how it’s performing. But I can’t see the roof coverings or at least not all of it. I can’t see all of the flashing. So there’s, limitations, the grading. You just, you can’t see it, right? You do what you can. And this past winter I had some, we got some real big snow falls. had some where I have these pair of boots that are up to my knees and I’m trudging around in the snow. And there was a couple of times where we got like three feet of snow and it’s like falling into my boots that are at my knees. And it’s like, you get inside and you’re brushing off and you’re soaked and you’re like, cool. I barely even started the inspection. I’ve only done exterior. So yeah, it’s a different world sometimes, but.
Matt Brading
Can’t even see how you can see anything at all. Like it just seems like, at least from the exterior. yeah, it just seems like, man, why even do it? I mean, it seems so. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, that’s a deal. We’ll never see that here. Brad’s never dealing with eye-stamming, you know? Eye-stams are something that we just do. We just see it online. That’s it.
Nate Boucher
Unfortunately, it’s not our plane. Next year we’ll get out. You see if there’s ice damming, I guess.
Brad Lowery
Yeah. I did it in Virginia.
Nate Boucher
Yeah.
Brad Lowery
Now I did winter inspections in Virginia. was one time, this was the beginning of winter where you could be forgiven for forgetting a jacket until it snows. And then you just hate yourself. Like I know how to do this. Like I know what seasons are. And yeah, I inspected the exterior in the snow in a polo shirt and that was miserable. And I didn’t make that mistake again.
Nate Boucher
The trick is if you’re trying to build your report on your phone as we all like to do and your gloves, unless you’ve got those gloves that tap through like your bare hands, it’s crazy snowy, it’s blowing wind and you’re like looking at your fingers and they’re not moving. And you’re like, just type, just type. And you can’t do anything sometimes. You have to get inside and spend about 15 minutes just warming yourself up. You can even continue.
Matt Brading
Absolutely not. I, man, no way. I mean, I hate like, was like 95 degrees outside today. was roasting hot, you know, just crazy. The addicts are just nuts. did a pre drywall inspection this morning. So it’s like basically all outside. I mean, it’s rough, man, but it ain’t like that cold, cold weather, man. I can’t deal with that. mean,
Nate Boucher
Hahaha. Yeah. Yeah, I get a bit of both here. like Ottawa has one of the biggest temperature swings of all the capital cities in the world. Um, so we go, we get pretty cold, like, I don’t know Fahrenheit, but like sometimes it’ll be like 40 below Celsius with the wind, um, which is real cold. And then in the summer, like right now we’re in the middle of like a heat wave drought. And it’s, know, like the, uh, a week ago I was in an attic and I just took my temperature gun and shot it up the sheathing to see, and it was 150 degrees.
Matt Brading
Really?
Brad Lowery
Peace.
Nate Boucher
You know, we get we get some hot weather here too. So I really go ups and downs. That was Fahrenheit. It was a spoiler, was actually on fire. No, sorry. That’s another Canadian thing. We like to flip between Celsius and Fahrenheit and yeah.
Brad Lowery
Both.
Matt Brading
Like, Celsius? Okay, I was like, wait a minute. I don’t really know Celsius, but good God, that’s bad. Like 300 degrees or something.
Brad Lowery
Good call out.
Matt Brading
As if it’s not going to we don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. know, metric system, Celsius, like what?
Nate Boucher
Yeah. Well, because we got too much influence from you guys, just, know, people, how far is, how far is that? We’ll say, it’s about an hour away. And you’re like, what does that mean? Like, what is that in kilometers? And then it’s sort of miles, who knows, right? How tall are you? Well, I’ll give you my height in feet and inches. How much do I weigh? It’ll be in pounds, but then other things will be measured in like, yeah, metric. We’re all in the map.
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Brad Lowery
At y’all measure it in stone. Yeah.
Matt Brading
I mean, that’s, that’s here in Houston, like half the people speak half English, half Spanish. Like they bounce back and forth from that. But, but I mean, you know, it’s not quite the same as going from standard. What is it? Metric system to standard, I guess.
Nate Boucher
Okay. Much of the material.
Brad Lowery
Thing is, it’s like up there, just, do it so nicely all the time, you know? They might switch back and They code switch, but it’s done nicely. Yeah. Yeah. That’s it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
Nate Boucher
You hopefully. At least that’s the facade we’re putting on. Maybe it’s just really snarky.
Matt Brading
Yeah. It just comes off really nice. We’re gonna have some words after we close that, after we’re off air here. Because now I understand. Now I see where everything, I see where you’re going with everything. Everything was just snarky now.
Nate Boucher
Yeah. Hahaha
Brad Lowery
Allowed.
Nate Boucher
Yeah.
Brad Lowery
Never nice. That’s awesome. Well guys, give Inspector Nate a follow. Seriously, man, thanks so much for coming on the show. And thank you everybody so much for watching. This has been great. Nate, let’s do it again, All right, good stuff. So guys, we will see you right here next time, better than ever on the Ride-A-Law. You got it.
Matt Brading
I view it so differently.
Nate Boucher
My pleasure. Absolutely.
Matt Brading
The Ride-A-Long.