Home Inspector · MA 1122-HI-1 · RI HI-44256

Greg got into home inspection because he liked the teaching part — walking someone through a house and watching them start to see it differently. Structure is where his attention goes first: how the building carries its own weight, what's moved since it was built, and whether that movement means anything.

His advice to buyers is two words: think like water. Follow the roof to the trim, the trim to the siding, the siding to the grade, and ask where water goes at every step. Most of what goes wrong in a house starts with water getting somewhere it shouldn't and staying there.

He came up through construction supervision, which shows in how he reads a house — he tends to know why something was built the way it was before he assesses how it's holding up. Problem-solving is the part he enjoys most.

If you're planning work on the house after you buy it, Greg's advice is to know your limits. The shows make it look quick. Budget more time and more money than you think, and bring in someone who does it for a living when the job calls for it.

Away from work, Greg rides — Route 1 down the West Coast, the Grand Canyon, Zion, Historic Route 66, and the Road to Hana. He's a sucker for the old houses of Eastern Massachusetts and the stories in them. He can also recite the alphabet backward starting from any letter, which has never once come up during an inspection.