Hawkeye Residential Inspections, LLC

Over the past month or so, i've been working hard, and spending a lot of money to get a new business rolling out of our house.  It's something that i've dreamed about doing for quite a while now and I finally pulled the trigger.

The business is called Hawkeye Residential Inspections, LLC and it's a home inspection business - the type of business people typically use when buying a new house although there are other times as well.  Sometimes people have them done prior to selling to find out what is wrong with their house and what will need to be fixed prior to putting it on the market.

It's really nice because it allows me to use many of the skills i've gained through 14 years of construction inspection work but also adds in the element of my love of houses.  For a long time i've had these pipe dreams of being a custom homebuilder and renovation specialist... a la Tom Silva (This Old House.)  In Fact, I can sit and watch episodes of This Old House back to back to back. 

Anyway, a number of friends and family have helped me quite a bit from getting contacts lined up, to free legal work, to tax advice... everyone has been there to help me out and I sincerely appreciate it. 

My company is fully formed, official and insured.  It has it's own bank account too, although it's pretty much empty at this point!

Anyway - there are some of you (Burlington relatives) who I will be sending information to - business cards and brochures.  And any of you in Iowa, or who know people in Iowa who want to scare up business for me or tell people about me would be on my AWESOME list forever.  I can do inspections anywhere in Iowa... the closer the better but I would certainly travel to DesMoines, the Quad Cities, Burlington, etc... for people if they needed me to... especially for friends and family.

I can also inspect in Minnesota as they have no additional requirements like Iowa.  Illinois has a problematic Real Estate linked exam that they require which i'm not interested in getting.  I have passed the National Home Inspector Exams and ASHI (American Society of Home Inspectors) Standards & Practices/Ethics exams which is the hard part... now I just need to do inspections.

I have started a website... it's not the prettiest or most professional but I think it gets the job done and it's a work in progress.  I'm also doing a lot of networking via my business Facebook page which is surprisingly helpful.  Hopefully you'll become a fan of the page and anyone who wants to write a testimonial and put your first name on it, would be a welcome addition to the site as well.  I will begin a newsletter at some point.

Thanks for reading and I hope you'll consider me for an inspection should you need one.

Rob

LINK TO SITE

happy easter!

is it spring yet?

last weekend, we had a string of days in the low 30s which felt downright balmy. after a bit of hemming and hawing, we got eleanor into her winter gear and had some fun outside. i built a little snow lady and snow baby and E used her gardening tools to rake and scoop up snow into a bucket while rob did the serious work of shoveling the walks.




E got pretty adept at shoveling--never mind that she was moving the snow onto the walkway.



there has been a fair bit of painting at the easel lately (the rainbow and letters were done by grammie). E's favorite subject is clouds of various colors.



spring fever has definitely been creeping into our indoor activities. E has been talking a lot about planting seeds and making a garden when the snow melts. on wednesday, we made a trip to UI's natural history museum and spent some time spying the little details (snail shells, hiding birds, beetles) in the "springtime at palisades-kepler state park" diorama. that morning, eleanor asked if we could go to the "garden center" to get seeds and dirt and flower pots and tools. after the museum we stopped at earl may and picked up some heirloom seeds (i explained that we already had all that other stuff)--tomatoes, peppers and milkweed (to attract some monarch caterpillars)--and she's been having fun carrying them around, shaking the packets and pretending to plant them.

Big Girl

Big Girl Bed!!