If you’re a Minnesota home inspector or aspire to become one, you should join the Heartland Chapter of the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI). In fact, if you’re a home inspector anywhere close to Minnesota, you ought to join our chapter, which was rebooted back in 2014 after being defunct for a couple of years. We’ve grown steadily ever since, and we currently have over 80 members.
What’s an ASHI chapter?
From the ASHI website, “Chapters are the heart of ASHI, delivering all the benefits of membership in an inspector-friendly, nurturing environment. Here you will find technical education, marketing and business-building tips, networking opportunities, report writing suggestions, camaraderie and swapping of “war stories.”
In my own words, we’re a group of home inspectors who meet together every month to learn from trade professionals and each other, in order to be better home inspectors. We ask each other questions and have regular discussions in an effort to deliver better service to our clients. To join a chapter, one must also be a member of ASHI at the national level, but our chapter still welcomes visitors to our monthly meetings whether they’re members of ASHI or not. Annual chapter dues are $100.
It’s all about education
The top reason to join the ASHI Heartland Chapter is education. For starters, we have monthly meetings ten months out of the year. The monthly meetings typically take place at Frankie’s Pizza in New Hope. Chapter members pay $15 to attend these meetings, which includes dinner. For chapter members who can’t attend the meetings in person, we offer live streaming of the chapter meetings through Zoom. We also offer recordings of the past meetings to current chapter members.
With the chapter meetings alone, that’s 20 FREE hours of CE each year. We also offer two all-day seminars each year for only $25 each to chapter members, which is a steal. The photo below was taken from our most recent all-day seminar, which was a joint effort with the Minnesota Society of Housing Inspectors.
Other chapter benefits
Besides all of the continuing education, chapters are a great way to meet other home inspectors. It’s about building relationships. I’ve hired home inspectors that I’ve met through this chapter, and I’ve referred hundreds of home inspections to other home inspectors in my chapter. I’ve also done numerous ride-along inspections with home inspectors who are technically my competition. I don’t claim to have any inspection secrets; if I teach my competition, they’ll do a better job, and so will I.
We don’t officially have a mentorship program in our chapter for new home inspectors, but that’s something I’m hoping for us to implement in the next year.
Past speakers:
Who teaches at our monthly meetings and all-day seminars? Here’s a partial list of some recent past presenters:
- Barry Eliason, Structure Tech
- Andy Schreder, MN State Building Official
- Patrick Huelman, U of M Associate Extension Professor
- Tom Feiza, Mr. Fix-It Inc.
- Scott Dorn, BOGO Pest Control
- Joe Konopacki, Insight Property Services
- Curt Johnson, Simpson Strong-Tie
- Derek Burchill, Electric City
- Greg Achmann, Fireside Hearth and Home
- Corey Campbell, Legend Technical Services
- Ed Cottingham, Zonolite Attic Insulation Trust
For a full list of past and future speakers for our chapter, check out our chapter calendar here: http://ashiheartland.org/calendar/. Also, check out the upcoming events page on our website.
All are welcome
As I’ve said before, anyone is welcome to attend our chapter meetings. If there’s an upcoming meeting that sounds interesting, come check it out. If you’d like to subscribe to our chapter’s newsletter, please sign up below:
Author: Reuben Saltzman, ASHI Heartland Chapter President
