Solar is showing up in more inspections every year, and most companies still don’t have a consistent way to handle it across a multi-inspector team.
In The Ride Along episode 76, Brad Lowery and Matt Brading sit down with Cory Vanderpool of Sprk to talk about why solar has become such a blind spot in real estate transactions, and what a multi-inspector company can do about it before it becomes a problem.
Sprk partners directly with inspection companies to train every inspector on staff, not just one specialist, to visually inspect solar and generate a standardized condition report. The process takes about 15 minutes on site, and the inspection report comes back to the company ready to hand off, which matters when you’ve got several inspectors in the field on any given day and need every one of them producing the same quality of documentation.
Cory also points to a number every growing company should sit with: 41% of the inspections Sprk helps inspectors with turn up a problem that needs to be addressed at the point of transaction, meaning the liability exposure isn’t rare, it’s routine.
For a company managing multiple inspectors, multiple markets, and multiple report styles, standardization is the difference between solar being a training headache and solar being a reliable, ancillary revenue line across the whole team.
Interested in learning more about residential solar inspections? Download a free eBook – The Solar Opportunity – from our partners at Inspector Services Group.
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Transcript
Brad Lowery
Matt, I got a bright idea, dude. I think it is. Is mine on? Hey I
Matt Brading
Is this thing on? Hello. Hello hello. Hello.
Brad Lowery
y you wanna you wanna talk about the sun?
Matt Brading
Sure. Is this like that Beatle song Here Comes the Sun or something? Doo dude.
Brad Lowery
All right, cue the intro and let’s talk about that. Here comes the sun, but with the intro.
All
right, guys, welcome back in. This episode of The Ride Along, we’re talking about a hot topic, quite literally, because it’s about the sun. I got so many dad jokes on this, man. And
Matt Brading
man.
Brad Lowery
you know, we’ve got a full panel of people to talk about the sun.
solar panels. This is this is a this
Matt Brading
Yeah, I g I get it. The panel thing. Yeah, I got
Brad Lowery
is going this is going downhill so fast. Welcome
Matt Brading
Ha ha
Brad Lowery
to the show, Corey Vanderpool. How are you, man?
Cory Vanderpool
Good. Thanks for having on. It’s great to be here and get to chat and love love talking about solar. It’s one of my favorite things.
Matt Brading
This
this episode has started
Brad Lowery
Why is it?
Matt Brading
out as a bad rendition of Jungle Cruise.
Brad Lowery
That’s exactly it. Dude, why is solar so popular? How’d you get into it? What do you do? Tell them about Sprk. Everything, man.
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah.
So I’ve been doing this for a while. I mean, just like I mean, probably a lot of things. I got into it for the money, you know. I was one of those guys out knocking doors door to door. I started off years ago knocking doors selling alarms. And all the guys that were selling alarms learned about solar and moved over from alarms into solar. And so there was a big move that way. I mean
Matt Brading
God, dude, that is brutal. Where were you doing that at?
Where where were we doing that?
Cory Vanderpool
in Beaumont.
So, you know, you know, I was that’s
Brad Lowery
That was
Cory Vanderpool
why I lived in Beaumont is I was knocking doors in Beaumont, Texas.
Matt Brading
Dude. Man,
I can’t even imagine what it’s like to knock on doors in Beaumont, Texas. Like I at least Well, I mean, like, forget it. Like, I mean, like
Brad Lowery
You sweat, man for a living.
Cory Vanderpool
Well try Port Arthur Texas now now that’s fun.
Matt Brading
nobody wants you knocking on their door. So I mean, like, I okay, this is completely off topic, but I gotta I gotta know. ’Cause I wonder all the time, ’cause people knock knock on my door and like all of my neighbors text each other and they’re like, Hey, sales guy coming around, you know, just so that we can either like ignore them or like
you know, do whatever we do or slam the door in their face, whatever. Anyway,
Cory Vanderpool
Right.
Matt Brading
I try to be cool, but then they’re pushy and then I’m not cool. Anyway, like what what do you how what is the the turnover? Like how many how many out of twenty houses that you knock on the door, like how many of them actually end up in some type of transaction out of twenty?
Cory Vanderpool
you know, the numbers are different now than they used to be for sure. When I was knocking doors, it’s been years, like decades, since I actually knocked a door. Yeah,
Matt Brading
Four or five years ago.
Cory Vanderpool
yeah, yeah. I’m just doing it. No. luckily the that ship has sailed in my life. And actually, I’m actually pretty busy. I I hit against not door knocking. And and
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Cory Vanderpool
you know, you start to see the light a little bit and realize the probably harm that we’ve done. And there’s some there’s some real challenges there.
But
door knocking is extremely effective. That’s a reason why they go do it. It’s like there’s no better way to find someone than go like stock them at their house, you know? And so
Brad Lowery
Man
Cory Vanderpool
if you own a house and you have money and you know, and you’re able to borrow money, you’re now a potential customer. If you
Matt Brading
I was about to say if you own a house, you don’t have money.
Cory Vanderpool
have the potential to borrow money, right? That then that’s what the mentality is. Like as a new homeowner.
Like which obviously home inspection customers are, you know, they go from being buyers to new homeowners. You know, at least for in the solar world, they’re gonna get hit in the first 90 days, especially in these these solar states like Texas is, you know, it’s one of the we were just talking about before, but it’s a big growing state for solar. 90 days, the first 90 days, like first three months are there, a hundred people will stop by to tell you about how great solar is and how you need to get it. So there’s just they’re coming around still because.
At the end of the day, you know, the highest paid salesperson in the country right now and for the last 10 years, solar. Solar sales pays really well. Yeah. And so it’s there, I mean, there’s motivation to get out there and knock on those doors. Now.
Matt Brading
So it’s let’s clarify that’s not what this show’s about today.
Cory Vanderpool
No, it’s not.
Brad Lowery
Yeah,
Cory Vanderpool
But I’m just saying,
Brad Lowery
that’s
Cory Vanderpool
but that but but then it’s why there’s so many of them out there bugging people. And I think it’s important why, you know, there’s some awareness made for that around it. So it’s like one of things that we do at Sprk is create awareness around that because the last thing we want people to do is to go solar in the wrong scenario or someone who’s trying to push them into it because we’re trying to align with agents. And one thing that agents really don’t like is when their clients get pushed into something that’s gonna be bad for them later. So
We, you know, that is an important awareness thing is like help make sure your buyers watch out for those pushy guys coming around because they are very pushy and don’t always do what’s best for the customer.
Matt Brading
Yeah, Corey, so I think
Brad Lowery
Dude, I do wanna
Matt Brading
I think go ahead, Brad.
Brad Lowery
Now I was gonna say I do want to make a connection for the home inspectors here so that they know exactly what this is about and why we want to talk with you today.
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah. Why are we taking door to door sales?
Matt Brading
I think I think Brad’s doing the same thing I was about to do.
Brad Lowery
yeah, yeah. So so Sprk is one of the primary sponsors, one of the bigger sponsors for Inspection Fuel twenty twenty six, happening September twenty eighth through the thirtieth in Louisville, Kentucky. Guys, go sign up for it. But Corey, you’re gonna be speaking at Fuel as well, man.
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah, I’m really glad about that. I’m honored to be on the lineup and be able to share some knowledge. There’s just a lot of solar systems out there now. There’s a a a lot of unknownaround it. And so one of my missions right now and Sprk is to create awareness in the entire real estate community, not just for home inspection, but for the whole, you know.
ecosystem of real estate transaction, but especially obviously in inspections, right? We want to make sure that inspectors know what solar is, how to inspect it, and like how do we actually come away from an inspection positively impacting the buyer, right? It could be as at the end of the day, like we want that buyer to make sure that they’re getting good information, but as an inspector, not overstepping our bounds and and speaking about stuff that we don’t know, because most have always just traditionally disclaimed it. Like if you’ve got a solar on property, you’re just like, we’re not touching it.
Because it becomes a liability. So that’s where Sprk for us, that’s why we’re speaking. We’re excited to connect with the inspectors at Fuel. I’m doing a class, there’ll be CE credits depend for different states. And also if you’re, you know, you know, looking for credits for your Internauchi or your Ashy, counts toward those as well. It’s great.
Matt Brading
So so Corey, now we we met back last year at Fuel in New Orleans. and and I know about you and and we we even talked about being on the show back then. So we’ve been you know looking forward to having you on ever since then. And and and now that you’re finally here, nobody answers the phone because
Cory Vanderpool
I don’t know, I keep calling, no one answers. It’s weird. I don’t know, man.
Matt Brading
we don’t have a phone. so hey, I but I really want to I want you to address the audience and let let the listeners know exactly what Sprk is.
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah, so what we do is we’re a trading platform, we’re an education platform for solar. So what basically the objective of Sprk is to provide post-installation support for the solar homeowners out there. And the best way we found to do that is give the pros, you know, real estate agents, inspectors, appraisers, everybody involved, the resources that they need. Now, our business model is we partner with inspection companies.
We give them the ability to inspect solar both in the pre-listing environment and during as part of the home inspection to be able to inspect it, generate a report that can be utilized in either showcasing solar, right, on the pre-listing side, or obviously evaluating what is happening with the health and condition of this solar system. How healthy is it? How well does it prove power? And so we educate them. So we have education, we have a whole platform for that. We have a software platform and an app to be able to take those classes. But then also while they’re on site, inspect the solar.
And then we generate the reports. With Sprk, it takes about 15 minutes or so to j inspect a solar system. We get the data back, we generate the report, send it back to you. Most inspectors are then able to, you know, pass that on as a great ancillary, really profitable add-on service while they’re there inspecting the house anyways.
Matt Brading
So so you’re s training and software to produce a report about the condition of of it’s funny because you keep saying solar system and my mind goes somewhere completely different. Are you having anybody else have But I
Brad Lowery
Universal even, galactic. Yeah.
Matt Brading
don’t know what I mean it’s I
Cory Vanderpool
Neptune.
Matt Brading
it’s right. I don’t know what else you’d call solar power system? I don’t know, but you say solar system and I’m man I’m
Cory Vanderpool
that’s the right name.
Matt Brading
all of a sudden in like planets and stuff in the galaxy. Any anywho
Brad Lowery
There’s a Uranus joke in there somewhere, but we’re not gonna make it. So dude.
Anywho, so now I’ve got a question on this. So is this like an ancillary service? Because this is why I home inspectors should care this. Number one, you know, as you’ve said, as we talked about a little bit before the show, and I want to get into this later, solar is becoming more popular in states where it hasn’t been previously, especially as energy gets more expensive, people are trying to find ways to save. so we can talk about that in a bit.
But
for home inspectors, is this an ancillary service that they could be charging for? Because, you know, for for the inspectors in the field here, we’re we’re looking to make some money. And we’re looking to also be helpful to buyers in the way that we in the services that we offer, you know, it’s not just for the money. So educationally, are you providing like a certification or of some sort where, you know, they can be like, hey, I’m trained to inspect this system and provide you a report on it for such and such an amount?
Cory Vanderpool
Right. Yeah, that’s a good question. And at the end of the day, you know, you get the value right that you’re you’re putting in. And so everybody tries to, I think, do the best inspections possible. And I’ll tell you, you know, an interesting statistic for you is that 41% of the inspections that we help inspectors do, they have a problem that needs to be addressed at the point of transaction. So there’s issues that come up that if you know inspectors are just looking past it now.
The buyers are inheriting some expensive problems that they shouldn’t, you know, or they they should at least be aware of. and what’s cool is like as a third party, we help provide inexpensive solutions there. But if it’s just like a solar company coming, just like a contractor to come somebody comes in and inspect the deck, you know, you got to tear the whole thing out and rebuild it, you know, rather than fix the issue, you know, at a minimal cost. And so with us, we find that these systems.
You know, definitely can be a profitable add-in, or should say these inspections could be a really profitable add-on service because they’re delivering so much value, because it is so much cheaper for a buyer or even a seller who’s selling to get that inspection, find out what’s going on. You know, because like if you got a lease company, this is a good example. We actually just this literally had this issue today. Someone called in because they got an inspection done, their solar system, they’re like, the sellers like, it’s leased, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.
Turns out the system wasn’t w working at all. But the buyer would have taken that over, had no idea had they not got the inspection done. And they called to ask us. They’re like, what do we do with this? And so we just said, listen, it’s owned by the lease company. They will come out and repair that, but oftentimes they don’t, unless somebody says, Hey, there’s a problem. I need help. And so free solution, but they would have gone months probably without, you know.
Getting any benefit from that. So the all the electricity savings, two, three hundred dollars a month that they would have been enjoying, you know, there’s the $1,000 down the tube thatthey would have lost. And for the $300 that this inspector charged them, right? They were able to get a solution and then have it you know, taken care of for free because the lease company was on the line for it. So it’s just again, practically looking at this, it’s really beneficial for buyers, but it also is awesome for inspection companies. I mean, we’ve seen tremendous growth because of this. It was like uncovered this.
unique,
really cool way to add value, but really you know, and and obviously be profitable as a specter, but really help buyers with something that they need and they’re oblivious to. They have no idea.
Matt Brading
I mean, I definitely see value in it. I mean, like we were talking a little bit this for those listening, this happens like pretty much every time we have one of these shows. We end up having a 10
Brad Lowery
It’s a pre show, yeah.
Matt Brading
or 15 minute conversation that should have been recorded before we even hit record. And we were talking about that. we were we were we were on that topic before and we’re talking about how popular or not so popular solar is in Texas. You were saying it’s on the climb and it might be. but I mean like for the most part, like energy’s relatively cheap here.
We got a lot of gas equipment. and I I mean I know that there’s more times than not that I see s solar systems feels funny saying that solar systems like kind of messing with a transaction, like the buyers aren’t really interested in solar.
Cory Vanderpool
yeah.
Matt Brading
But yeah, they gotta assume this and maybe even a contract or something like that. And it takes a long time to see a return. There’s not much of the incentives here as in a lot of other places. So anyway, there’s a lot of things there, but it might be on the rise and and
I feel like I have to bring this up because we didn’t really finish that conversation. This is like related, unrelated. But I mean like you were saying that it that, you know, the reason why it’s kind of on the rise in Texas was because of a sad story about what happened in 2021 with the freeze situation. And you’re not wrong, right? But but there’s more to that. And it actually I feel like it goes a little bit deeper than that. So I want to touch on it a little bit. Because I don’t believe that like Texans are getting solar.
because we had an issue in 2021 with freezing and basically we it you know a lot a lot of us lost power and and so we ended up freezing pipes which was just kind of unheard of for us in this area. That was an issue with the grid and it had a lot to do with people moving here from elsewhere. and and and you know the influx of houses that have been has been happening since like 2020, right?
and then so yeah, I mean it had something to do with that. But it’s like Texans get generators, you know, at least at least out here in in in the Houston area where we’re, you know, not coastal, but I mean like you know, we definitely deal with a hurricane situation. We have generators to deal with that type of issue. Whereas some people, you know, in in other areas maybe maybe it wouldn’t be the case, but but we most of us down here have generators instead of a s a solar power system, but people, so many people came from elsewhere. and particularly
you know, places out west and and they brought their ways in with them. and and one of those is solar. and so you know you’ll get a lot of people that did move here fromsomewhere else that just get get solar on their house because they feel like that’s the way to go. But it doesI don’t know. I mean like don’t get
me wrong. I I’m not I’m not saying anything but what’s that?
Cory Vanderpool
Well, yeah, let me let me let me just speak to that for No, no, let me
let me just expand a little bit because I want to make sure that we’re really clear because there’s cause and effect, right? So what what ended up happening was when you look at the policy of the state, it was affordability. The objective of the state prior to that freeze was affordability. After that, it created a a safety environment issue, and the policy changed. They published this and they said, our policy is now reliability.
And so with that, that required a huge infrastructure investment. And so Texas spent a lot of money on infrastructure, and that then gets passed down to consumers. And if you look at actually the most expensive rates in the country where electricity is more scarce, where anyways, where it’s more difficult to get, or where it’s more limited and there’s c a constraint of electricity, that’s where we see higher prices. And so Hawaii being the highest, you
Matt Brading
Hawaii, yeah.
Cory Vanderpool
know, that’s yeah, right. So Hawaii is it, it’s but.
California also, like if you remember in the 90s, early 2000s, they had these rolling brownouts because there was not enough power. And so what we see is that when there is less power than what we need, then you know, as demand goes up, it’s not like Costcowhere you get a discount. You actually see a spike in electricity costs because the grid can only make so much. And so they will raise prices to disincentivize use so that way they keep the the grid balanced.
Because if the grid ever really does shut down, that’s why they do those rolling brownouts. It doesn’t turn back on. It’s not like it’s generating just turn it back on. It’s really bad if it really shuts down. So they’ll they will strategically shut parts of it off. And that’s why they had a two-week rolling blackout in Texas, because Texas isn’t connected to the rest of the grid. But basically the cost went up. And so the reason people go solar.
Sometimes people think it has to do with the sun or the environmental orientation of someone. You know, you talked about oil and gas and stuff. It has nothing to do with it. The cost of electricity is what drives adoption of solar and salespeople. So the sales, when the price goes up, the salespeople come in. And that’s what we were talking about in the beginning of the show, door to door, is because the door-to-door people just come in and and they just bombard people. And then when they sign up, and anyways, and that’s when we see a lot more adoption. And so there’s something that’s called grid parity when
The monthly cost of solar is equal to or less than what they would be paying to the grid. When you achieve that number lower, that’s when they come in. And it’s not like people are like, yeah, sign me up for solar. It’s that, you know, you got those guys banging down the door and pushing people into these contracts. And that’s why I started Sprk is because I realized that as a solar guy, maybe we didn’t do so many favors by not being able to actually deliver.
On the promises, why we said that’s why I say we keep saying we work with agents because they need a lot of help. Because the problem, the big issue with so much of these solar systems is it’s not anything other than it’s a complete unknown. If you do not know what you’regetting into, that’s way worse than like getting into something that might be perceived as negative. The fear of the unknown is way worse. And so if we can create clarity and visibility, right? Now you can create more confidence there. And that’s one of the very objectives we’vetried to do is like.
Our
goal isn’t really to get more solar on out there, which if people go solar, awesome. I love that. But our objective is to make sure that we can support everybody who’s already gone solar because again, there’s already, there’s a lot of it out there.
Matt Brading
Yeah. Yeah,
it’s alright there’s already a lot of it out there. So I don’t think, you know, y you’re not pushing for for it to be there or or whatever. I mean yeah, I think you’d find it interesting.
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah, I I would like you said it’s great to see it but
Matt Brading
My friend Travis Jones, who’s been on the show before, kind of came from selling solar as well and then found himself in energy efficiency. Ma basically he mostly he’s a roofer by trade, but he also takes older homes that are less efficient and from the attic down
tries to make them more efficient because he found that you know a lot of these houses didn’t necessarily need solar equipment. They just needed to fix their energy consumption issues. And so that’s pretty interesting, kind of off topic. But but I mean like I’m looking at a house right now out this window that has solar on it. So we have it here. The point is
Cory Vanderpool
No, well that’s that that’s actually no so yeah. No, no, well, so that
actually it presents a really good point because that’s one of the reasons other things that we do is we help inspectors not only inspect the solar, but generate an energy report for every single inspection. So what it can do is then tell a buyer
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Brad Lowery
That’s good. Okay.
Cory Vanderpool
like what are the ways to make what is how is this home efficient and then how else can they make it efficient? Because I
Matt Brading
That’s interesting.
Cory Vanderpool
firmly believe is like remote like fix the holes in the tire before you start dumping air into it, right?
Like get the house so it you’re not wasting power. And because there’s way more cost effective ways to do that than solar, right? You can do, you know, several things first. And and you know, that’s that’s a key part of what that energy report tells them is how do I reduce this?
Matt Brading
That’s interesting. I had no idea.
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah, so that’s a key part of what we do. And that’s something that generates actually automatically through like we have an integration with ISN and and other platforms that it actually auto-generates those energy reports with every single inspection an inspector does.
Matt Brading
What is it using to to
Brad Lowery
Dude, that’s good to know.
Matt Brading
collect that data and and make that report?
Cory Vanderpool
You do a home inspection. You probably don’t know about home inspection reports, but there’s this report that inspector does of the house. I’m just joking. yeah, you basically off their inspection.
Matt Brading
I was like, where is he going? This one.
Cory Vanderpool
so outfit inspection report, we are we we basically pull the data off of it, we generate an energy report that shows basically like what’s the envelope tightness of the house. So wedo an analysis on the energy profile of that home. We look at the utility costs, and then we’ll say, okay, we exp estimate the utility bills will be this much.
And then these are the ways to improve that if you want. But and this is how much solar you would need too. So that way, again, I told about those guys coming around selling the solar, it helps then protect that consumer. Cause the only way to get good data is this report that I’m aware of from like not a salesperson. Like we are not trying to sell people solar on this. We don’t care. This
Matt Brading
Yeah, no, yeah.
Cory Vanderpool
is about protecting the buyer. So that way, if they do decide to get one of these things, they can make an educated decision about it.
And
like I said, what’s nice is it just happens automatic. So whenever you generate an inspection report, it comes in your and you’re part of Sprk, it comes into our portal, we process it and then re-tag it through the integration. And so the inspector actually doesn’t have to do anything. and they just get it as an attachment on their report through our integrations.
Brad Lowery
Now, are you guys looking at everything from when you’re considering efficiency and and scoring the home energy wise, are you looking at everything from ages of appliances, you know, specifically heating and air conditioning, type of duct work, insulation, things like that? Or you know, and and how do you go about rating and scoring some of these things? Is it like a one to ten scale or how’s that working?
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah,
so we it’s physics, honestly. what it comes down to is when you look at the envelope tightness of the home, when you look at the efficiency of the of an air conditioner, of a heater, right? Is it what’s the heat source? We measure all of that as a part of it. So we can look at for example an HVAC label and know, okay, this is a gas furnace. this is you know, five years old, this is a fourteen sear air conditioner, this is a twenty four inch square foot house. And what’s cool is in our energy reports, the
Buyer actually can go in and say, well, we like to run our air at 72 for four months and our heater at you know 68 for four months. And then it will adjust the numbers on that report based off of their input. If they drive an electric vehicle, not everybody does, but if you do, right, that also changes your bill. So so all of those things go into then calculating what is the consumption of the home, what is the benefit of the items that it has already, and then what’s their what’s their electricity gonna be. And so
We’re
analyzing not as much the gas aspect of it because we’re looking at the electricity side of this because solar doesn’t generate gas, it’s just electricity. So we want to analyze it for that. And its efficiency is about that. But like how much insulation, like what’s the difference between four inches of cellulose versus spray foam? What is the impact on that? Like it does the analysis on all of that.
Matt Brading
So I get
Brad Lowery
Including windows
and ’cause there’s so many different variations of windows over the last twenty years in terms of insulation and argon reading.
Matt Brading
Yeah. But but I mean like a typical home inspection isn’t gonna
give you that data, so how are you calculating the air tightness of a of of the envelope?
Cory Vanderpool
So we’re able to get about 85% of it off of most inspectors’ reports. And then we’ll run a report after they’ve run a dozen of so, and then we can let them know like, hey, if you add in, like you don’t have window count on your on your inspection report. But then we’ll know like average home. So there’s there’s again, we’ve been doing this for years now. And so we know, for example, for every 2100 square feet of of home, you’ve got an average of 12.5 windows. So there’s certain things that we know, right? So that we can then put in there.
And help augment the data. We also pull in other data from public sources, permit records and MLS records and whatnot. So we’ll we’ll bring that data in. We look at your local utility costs. So that way we can then we calculate, okay, this is what we estimate the bills are gonnabe. And so it’s a way to be able to provide information so that people can make you know, have some good
Matt Brading
So it’s an educated guess.
Cory Vanderpool
information. No, I mean we’re using it’s it’s calculate it’s it is.
Matt Brading
Well I mean it’s I mean i
I just I mean like you don’t know what you don’t measure and I mean like you’re not getting an air tightness reading from without using a blower door.
Cory Vanderpool
That’s right.
It is not so it is not a can it is not an energy audit. So we’re not taking energy. That’s right. So it’s usually though within if we go it do that and we can go after we’ve calibrated someone’s reports, you most markets, it’s about five to ten percent of what their electricity like kilowatt hours are, and what their bills are. Like it’s usually pretty accurate though. So it’s it cause it’s it’s not a
Brad Lowery
So it’s more qualitative analysis than
Cory Vanderpool
Go ahead. It’s yeah, it’s more of a quantitative that’s right.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, I was just I was just saying it’s more qualit
yeah, qualitative, not necessarily quantitative, but you know, you can get you can get within spitting distance.
Cory Vanderpool
Well, the other way. So it’s not qualitative.
We’re not looking at how how well the air conditioner works. We’re saying this air conditioner at this efficiency rating will have this impact on this home’s energy profile. And so that way we can provide
Brad Lowery
Gotcha, okay.
Cory Vanderpool
that analysis. And so we’re just we’re providing data there so that way the buyer can understand again what is the benefit of this home, where where can improvements be made? and then because if you’ve got 10 people living in a house or five people living in a house or one.
Right. Or you’ve got eight inches of the attic insulation versus four. Like those are all things that you can easily calculate back in. Well, not I shouldn’t say easily, like it’s taken a long time for us to build that, but we you know, calculate all of that data back into then what is the impact on the electricity of all these different factors.
Brad Lowery
I gotcha. Now for for home inspectors, what’s the cost in participating with Sprk? I mean, are they forwarding some of this cost to the client when they charge for the report? you know, for like because you mentioned there’s integration with ISN and obviously there’s there’s a cost to using ISN depending on you know their contract structure and everything, how many inspections they’re doing a year, things like that. So, you know, what are you guys’ rates like? What’s what’s the cost to inspector per report?
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah.
So there’s couple we have a couple of different fee structures, but the primary one is when inspector signs up, we’ll charge an inspection company ten bucks a month. So there’s monthly fee. and then if they add like two inspectors on, we would charge five bucks more per. Soif it’s a three man, three inspector team, right? be ten bucks for the company and then five bucks for the other two inspectors. So they’re twenty bucks a month on that. and then that includes our whole system and I’ll tell you some of our other stuff that we do, but
also all the energy reports on all their homes. So they can those are unlimited and they generate on on all their reports. and then each time they want to get a solar inspection report, we charge them 50. and then they again pass the the cost on. Most are charging somewhere between 250 and 300, depending on which market they’re in for those. and so that’s that’s just the way our our program goes. but for with that, then there we have the app that they download. We have
a whole bunch of education though that we’ve provide because they’re like it like you know kind of what you mentioned already Tennessee so you’re in Tennessee right Brad there’s not a ton
Brad Lowery
Yeah, yeah.
Cory Vanderpool
of solar in Tennessee but there still is some and what we’ve have found
Brad Lowery
There is.
Cory Vanderpool
is there are real estate agents in Tennessee. and so what’s happening is agents are taking our our information and we provide a whole marketing suite of educational content where an inspector can go out and then get in front of a brokerage and say listen you know when you
You know, if you ever run into solar, this is what to watch out for. And it’s not like, hey, these are the problems that I find as inspectors. W I give you the content that I wrote to help inspectors or to train agents. And I give it away as ebooks, as checklists, as slideshows, as presentations. We even have CE classes that inspectors can all teach. And that’s just all included as part of our that 10 bucks a month that they’re paying. So we give them an entire marketing system that helps to.
Essentially position them as the go-to for this because that education is something that agents really need because agents are clueless when it comes to this. And I wouldn’t say no, I shouldn’t say that, not all, but like 98.9% of agents do not
Matt Brading
Yeah, most.
Cory Vanderpool
know what to do with solar. Seriously, it’s it’s a real challenge for them in the transfer. And so we give that to you as a way to say, hey, agent, this is a new unique thing for me to get in front of you.
And share with you. And so agent education becomes a really good resource. And we’ve had a lot of inspectors that are not in heavy solar states grow their inspection business from you know day one by getting in front of agents and providing that to them. So that again, we give a whole bunch of information. My goal is just how do we make this as easy and as simple for an inspector to utilize, but also to get the word out about this because some there’s a lot of need out there.
in order to help people with solar because of the the challenges that it does present in a transaction.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, so this gives for home inspectors. I mean, if if they’re looking for lunch and learn material to be talking about at a brokerage, this is something that that could kind of differentiate them from other competitors. one thing that I’m curious to talk about, and we we have talked a little bit about this in previous episodes. In fact, Matt, it’s a great thing you mentioned the Travis Jones episode. I’ll link that down in the show notes if you guys want to go back and watch it. It’s a good good sister episode to watch to this one. but
Cost wise, I think this is the biggest thing is people they there’s such a wide disparity between, you know, basic setups and you can get some really, really freaking high-end solar setups. one of the I I went to a BS and beer group here in in Nashville. I know Matt goes to one in Houston, but the one here we were talking with we had a presentation done at it by a solar installer here in Nashville.
And I asked him, I’m like, cost wise, I’m like, this looks steep. And he goes, Yeah, we definitely go for the high-end clientele. Like, okay, so you’re from Brentwood down to Franklin, where the the big players are, the big country stars and all of their managers and all these people, big money. But you know, cross-reference that with my my sister in Virginia, who’s, you know, got a great job, but she’s not a multimillionaire down in Franklin, Tennessee. She has a slightly more affordable setup. So
When it comes to, you know, people who might be interested in solar, is there is there a misconception about the initial cost versus the savings versus the time that it takes to for it to break even, even? Like you know,
you fill me in on that.
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah. I
mean, yeah. So so just like anything else, any obviously a larger home is going to consume more power. so the more power that a home requires and and depending on what they want to accomplish with their solar, would need more solar. but the amount of kilowatt hours all comes down to their electricity consumption. And so we size a a a solar system based off of how a home consumes and then what the customer wants to
And again, putting kind of my solar installer hat on for a second here, because that’s not what Sprk does. But I’m just saying if just someone’s wanting to go solar. but in sizing the solar system, it’s based off of consumption and then what they want to accomplish. So if there’ssomething called net metering, and net metering is the exchange of power between the homeowner and the utility company, because when you got solar, now you got your own generator, right? You get your own micro generation station on your house. And so the solar will generate like 24 hours worth of electricity in like an eight or 10 hour window, right?
So you have all this excess. So you get you have two options. You can either put it into a battery or you can send it back to the grid. And by default, pretty much everybody just puts it back to the grid and then they will credit them. So their meter spins backward during the day when you got all that excess and then forward at night, right? and then they will use an exchange of credit in a lot of situations. That’s called net metering or net billing, basically that exchange of power. And that’s where solar can be good if they have good net metering. Now,
Solar is not great in certain areas because of that. And so it wouldn’t make sense to like have enough to power the whole house. And that’s where then the batteries come in, you know, and you’ve got the and that’s where like solar doesn’t work though. This is a you guys will love this. Solar does not work if the grid is not on. So if you have solar on, right, your house and the grid goes down, it’ll shut down because you don’t want to be backfeeding in the grid, or else you create a safety situation when the grid is supposed to be down.
So those inverters automatically shut off unless you got a wall between you and the utility, right? A transfer switch. You mentioned generators, right? So with a generator, you got tohave a transfer switch so that way you’re not re-energizing the grid. so as long as you can island the home, right? Then you can have a generator or or I mean a solar system with batteries. And batteries are always going to drive the cost of adoption up. And whether it’s worth
Brad Lowery
So
Cory Vanderpool
it or not usually comes back to how expensive is the electricity. It goes back to that like thing that we talked about earlier.
In places where electricity is cheap, that’s solar and battery. Battery usually they’re not getting worth it, but solar might be, right? But it depends on what the cost is. And so that’s kind of where people gauge. And then you have these areas where you’ve got crazy expensive homes where money doesn’t really matter. So people don’t care. But if people save five bucks
Brad Lowery
Right, it’s a drop in the bucket.
Cory Vanderpool
a month, a lot of times they will go solar. That’s just like what sales guys convince them to do. So it’s it’s really interesting.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, that
with the sales guys, is this a little and this isn’t a gotcha question for you? Okay. This isn’t a reflection on you or Sprk. Yeah, no, this is
Cory Vanderpool
No, I don’t I don’t mind. I’ve I’ll have to tell you whatever you want to know.
Brad Lowery
just going to kind of shady salesman stuff. is there is this an instance that cause you were talking about how in in Texas, because of the rolling brownouts and the ice storms and stuff, a lot of people started adopting
solar down there as a solution. Is there a misconception sold by the the salesman where they’re like, hey, you can avoid remember how cold you were, froze your butt off for a few days? You could avoid that if you get solar, but they don’t understand. They never communicate that you can’t even use it if the grid is off.
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah, undoubtedly, I’m sure there is some of that happening. I think that if a solar salesperson is worth their salt, if they’re doing that, they should be put in jail. honestly, like there’s definitely like any industry that could be very
Matt Brading
I think a lot of them came straight from there actually.
Cory Vanderpool
right, they should get this guy back in jail.
Brad Lowery
It’s from jail.
Cory Vanderpool
no, but I mean, there’s just there’s it’s not solar sales are not regulated in a lot of states. Now, Nevada does have some regulation. There’s some states that do, but there’s not a lot of regulation there.
And
that’s actually what the solar sales people are out knocking the doors. That’s kind of why I harp on them, is because honestly, while they’re doing like, you know, they’re working hard, like I’m you know, they should get paid. That’s great. But the the flightiness of that industry actually has created a lot of instability in the solar industry and created problems. Like installers are going out of business like crazy. And it’s largely, honestly, a a lot of it comes down to the sales tactics and what what overselling.
overpromising, right? It’s kind what you mentioned. Or, like, that’s one of the reasons why the energy report matters is because sometimes people be like, yeah, hey, all you need is this these 10 panels and your house is going to be good till the apocalypse. And it’s like, no, that’sa lie. Or, hey, you need a hundred thousand dollars of solar to in order to do this. And it’s like, no, and we’re gonna give you five thousand dollars cash back, and then they keep the thirty grand instead of the 10 or something, right? So it’s like, whatever. I’m just like, there are some really shady things that happen out there.
And that’s where I don’t really love the sales side of it. And I and I openly talk about that, that it’s like at the end of the day, I think it’s far better if you can deal with someone who’s local, if you’re dealing with, you know, smaller businesses, because you’re if you’re dealing with the guy who’s gonna install it and who lives down the street, like, man, that’s a way better relationship long term because these things last like way longer than anybody anticipates. The solar panel will last for 50 years. It’s crazy. So you want
Brad Lowery
But this is this is
Cory Vanderpool
you wanna have something that’s gonna be reliable, or somebody, I should say.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, no,
and this is where home inspectors can help kind of bridge this gap, right? And this is another good area. Because there’s so much about you know, being a home inspector, Matt, where you know, we’ll be we’ll be asked a question or posed a a a theory or an assumption by a homeowner. And you know, should I get this? Should I do this? And the answer ends up being yes, but or, you know, maybe, or it depends. That’s your favorite. Yeah.
Cory Vanderpool
Right. Maybe. Yeah. Yes.
Matt Brading
It depends.
Brad Lowery
And so you get to kind of explain then, you know, yeah, no, there’s some advantage here if you understand how it works, and a lot of people won’t tell you correctly. You know, so you know, that’s that that’s good that you guys are then providing some semblance of education that home inspectors can, you know, it’s just added value that they’re bringing, you know, if they can if they can really speak truth to an industry that is a little poorly understood.
Matt Brading
I mean and that’s
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah, that’s what we want is
we want to give everybody just good information because at the end of the day, people can make good decisions with good information.
Matt Brading
That’s what these shows are about, you know, and it we have these discussions, whether it’s about solar, whether it’s about spray foam insulation or venting an attic or whatever, you know, there’s a lot of topics out there, or whether it’s re-inspections. We had a good one last month on reinspections. There’s a lot of topics out there that just don’t really get talked about enough. And there’s not maybe people don’t even there’s a whole lot of people that don’t know the resource that you’re providing. They don’t have any idea that it exists.
Brad Lowery
Yeah.
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah. And I we’re not
we’re not out banging the drum on social media. We probably should be. We just have had like so many referral like people just have come in and flooded, like we’ve signed up so many inspectors and we’ve we’re really happy about that. we just I think we’ve we’ve like cracked the code on something that the industry really needed. And so we’ve just had a huge organic like outreach. And I probably should do more marketing than we do, but we tried to go to some of the shows and stuff, but we’re just grateful for those have like caught that vision and run with it.
but I would definitely encourage anybody who’s you know, wanting to provide a higher level of service to their clients. I mean, there is a great opportunity because that so you want let me answer the question earlier because this kind of segues into that. These systems are not cheap. I mean, low-cost solar system is 20 grand, low cost. average from most states, it’s about $30,000 to $40,000 to put one on. And you look at any other part of the home like that, like that’s something that should be looked at in the transaction.
And
oftentimes, you know, systems are $80 to $100,000 legitimately, not just the scammers out there, but there are some big expensive systems out there. And it’s it is an opportunity to provide, you know, insights into this thing that’s like it’s like buying a car without Kelly Blue Book or or Carfax. It’s like that kind of that you wouldn’t buy a car. You would, it would be terrifying. It’s like, I don’t know. I’m I’m I don’t want to get taken, right? I don’t want to be taken advantage of.
And the goal here is to make sure that we’re just creating visibility so people can make good decisions. Again, whether that’s on the listing or the buy side. But we we have you know a lot of adoption on both sides of the transaction. It’s a unique pre-listing because it’s about our pre-listing reports actually showcase so there’s the inspection report, which is a condition, but the pre-listing reports that we help inspectors generate are for showcasing the home and helping that listing agent market it. So it’s it’s all about what’s the financial benefit.
And and really what needs to be disclosed, is that installer still in business or not? You know, is there a loan on it or not? What are the transfer instructions for a lease? You know, all of those kind of things, those go into that pre-listing to help them through that transaction.
Brad Lowery
No, that’s good to know, man. And you know, guys, if this sounds like a lot, you know, you get to learn even this and and so much more at inspection fuel. I mean, so Corey, I mean, ifyou want to plug your topic real quick, man, and then we’ll we’ll let people know how to go register. but yeah, what are what are you talking about at fuel?
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah,
so at fuel, there’s a couple different levels of inspection. So level one inspection is like basically like visual, like looking at the equipment, understanding them. That’s what we’re gonna cover. So if you come and join or come just check it out, like if you’re not interested in joining Sprk, that’s cool. Like if you just want to see what it’s all about inspecting solar, you like we will give you the recipe, how to do that at fuel. So I’m gonna be going over that. Level two is what has Sprk helps you do. We’re that we’re doing an analysis on the system and whatnot.
That’s obviously after Sprk, you know, whatever, fuel. You can obviously always go join up on our our website. But at fuel, we’re gonna be going over how solar works, what are the problems, how do you write comments about those, how do you incorporate that into your report. So even if you’re not, you’re just like, dude, I just want to learn about solar, come check it out, and we be well, we’re gonna be covering that. It’s an awesome class. Again, you get the CE and stuff, but I think that it can be a great way.
To get introduced to this topic that is so foreign to so many.
Brad Lowery
Man, I’m looking forward to that because especially when we were planning out the courses for this year, Matt and I kind of put our heads together with with the the course structure and topics we wanted to cover. And, you know, it’s not only us that was planning this whole thing. There’s a whole team of people doing it. But one of the things that we really wanted to emphasize was building science and modern advancements for energy efficiency and all kinds of stuff. Just new new tools, new tech, new science that’s going into making homes better in 2020.
six and giving home inspectors a a taste of something that they’re not going to get at other conferences, education and information that they won’t be hearing elsewhere. So I’m
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Brad Lowery
excited, man. Excited to have you there.
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah, I’m real I’m glad to be there. Grateful for the invitation and get to talk about it too. Like I said, I’ll
Brad Lowery
Yep.
Cory Vanderpool
I’ll go on and on about solar. It’s hard to shut me up, man.
Brad Lowery
Well, I I want to save some of it for the conference, dude. It’s gonna
be a good good sit-in. I’m I’m looking forward to joining. guys, so go register. Remember, it’s coming up. It’s it’s this is October. This is August 31st. I already said October. This is August 31st today. The episode’s dropping. And fuel is coming up in less than a month now. So
Matt Brading
That’s right.
Brad Lowery
yeah, it go to inspectionfuel.com slash register, 28 days.
Matt Brading
I was gonna
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah.
Matt Brading
say it’s almost exactly, but I forgot today’s the thirty first. It’s closer than I thought.
Brad Lowery
Yeah, tomorrow’s the first.
Yeah. I mean
Cory Vanderpool
Hey, if you’re at fuel,
come see me too. Well I’ll we’ll come by. I will we’ll get something for you. So anyways, we we appreciate everybody being coming in and checking it out. But we’re excited to see
Matt Brading
Drinks are on Corey.
Cory Vanderpool
everybody down there. That’s right. Wait a minute. Who wait, who said that?
Brad Lowery
What are your social media handles, man?
Matt Brading
You heard it you heard it here
folks.
Brad Lowery
What what are your social media handles, man? Where can people follow you?
Cory Vanderpool
yeah, so just SPRK Home. either you we you know we have our website, you know, SPRK Home.com, but also on Instagram and Facebook. those are our main places we we have stuff on there. but yeah, we’re we’re we’re also on LinkedIn and whatnot. But yeah, come check us out.
Brad Lowery
I love it, man. Well, dude, Corey, thanks so much for being here. Looking forward to seeing you in just 28 days, dude. We’re gonna be down in in Louisville. So
Cory Vanderpool
Yeah. Thanks, guys.
Brad Lowery
good stuff. All right, Matt.
Matt Brading
My name’s Matt, and
you can find me at Texas.edge.inspect on YouTube and Instagram, TikTok.
Brad Lowery
And where else can
they find you here in just a couple of weeks, man?
Matt Brading
well in a couple of weeks I’ll be a build show live.
Brad Lowery
Yes
Matt Brading
that is September tenth tenth, eleventh and twelfth. And and then a few weeks from there it’ll be fuel.
Brad Lowery
Yeah. Keynote speaker’s actually gonna be Mr. Matt Reisinger from Builds.
Matt Brading
Mr. Matt Reisinger.
And then and you know who the keynote speaker is at Bill? Steve Bazett. I got two killer
Brad Lowery
Ooh, even better, man.
Matt Brading
keynote speeches ahead of me in the next thirty days, man.
Brad Lowery
It’s gonna be a good month. It’s gonna be a good
Matt Brading
Yeah.
Brad Lowery
month. Guys, make sure you go register.
Cory Vanderpool
It’s awesome.
Brad Lowery
come see Corey at at Inspection Fuel. Come see us too, and
you know that we’ll see you there. And right here next time, better than ever, on
Matt Brading
The ride along.