I am a longtime homeowner with tons of experience in residential repair as well as upkeep. You could say I’m a do-it-yourself kind of person… I actually love getting in there as well as getting my hands dirty. In my opinion, it’s the only real way to learn a task or process. I used to perform inspections on residences so I had to know a good deal about everything that goes into making a residence safe for its renters. You have to check the foundation, the beams holding the residence up, the pipes, oil furnace, air conditioning machine, roof, as well as a bunch of other stuff. One other thing inspectors do that’s most definitely worth mentioning is testing for radon gas. If you don’t know, radon gas is an odorless, invisible, radioactive gas that is known to cause lung cancer with long periods of exposure. It oozes into your house through cracks as well as holes in the foundation as well as spreads out from there. It entirely can be a major annoyance as well as can be extremely harmful if not taken care of in a timely fashion. I’ve come across many residences that needed to hire a radon removal contractor to solve their issue. It’s definitely quite easy as well as can be taken care of by sealing up all apertures in the foundation as well as installing a tiny ventilation system to thrust the gas harmlessly into the atmosphere. There are radon testing kits available in just about any hardware store as well as they are pretty cheap, so there really is no reason for not testing your basement for radon gas. It could truly save your life.