Steve Bauer, owner of Bauer Inspection & Consulting Services, examines a window during his 10,000th inspection, in a home on Moundview Drive.

Steve Bauer checks out a furnace with Derek Scott, who hired Bauer to inspect the home he plans to buy. Bauer conducted the milestone inspection Thursday, and provided the service - normally a 10 job - free for the first-time home buyer, in honor of the occasion.

Steve Bauer wriggles into crawl spaces, closes doors and climbs on roofs for a living, spotting more than a few cracked foundations, inoperable dishwashers and soiled carpets during his more than two decades as a property inspector.

But even the seasoned veteran comes across a surprise or two – like the time he discovered a sawed-off shotgun aimed out a bay window, instantly disarming the matter-of-fact man whose job is to identify problems on behalf of his clients.

At least the place wasn’t wired with explosives.

“I pulled back a curtain and it was sitting there, pointed toward the front door, with about a 6-inch barrel on it,” Bauer said, allowing himself to smile a little now that years have passed since the incident in Texas. “The seller wasn’t there, but I was very anxious to get out of that house.”

And the potentially explosive situation started and ended just like 9,999 other contract jobs during his 22 years as an inspector: with a comprehensive written report detailing the plusses and minuses of a property he’d been hired to check out.

“I just took a picture of it and showed it to the buyer,” Bauer said. “I let them come to their own conclusions.”

Last week the owner of Bauer Inspection & Consulting Services of Baldwin City reached his career milestone of 10,000 commercial and residential inspections. He spent an afternoon poking, prodding and testing every door, appliance and seemingly everything else he could find inside and out of a house along Moundview Drive.

It’s a ritual he’s been following since the early days, with about the only change coming through technology. Reports that once were written up in the office or at home now are produced on site, using a laptop computer, digital camera and laser printer.

Clients leave with all the analysis and paperwork they need to make an informed decision about a property.

“He’s the most thorough person I’ve ever seen,” said George Paley, who hires Bauer to inspect residential and commercial properties that the Lawrence-based property manager is lining up to buy. “He’s amazingly thorough.”

How thorough? Here are few entries included in his report for the home on Moundview:

¢ On the home’s cooling system: “The temperature differential between the cold air return and the cold air out of the register should be between 15° and 21°.” (Bauer determined it to be 17 degrees.)

¢ On the home’s interior: A “door does not close properly and needs adjustment.” The report includes advice on how to fix the problem, by putting a large nail (“16d casting”) or screw (“3-inch deck screw”) into the door jamb via a pre-drilled hole to prevent splitting the wood.

¢ On the home’s plumbing: “Tub Stopper does not operate.”

First-time homebuyer Derek Scott said that none of the problems were expected to be deal breakers – “That’s cheap,” he said of the bathtub problem – and that he and his wife, Aindrea, were looking forward to moving into the place with confidence, knowing that it had received a thorough checkup.

The Scotts also will be hearing from Bauer on a regular basis. The inspector sends out quarterly newsletters to clients offering tips about maintenance, repairs and other issues involving the homes he’s inspected.

Among his major points is to encourage people to use pleated furnace filters, which should be bought four at a time and labeled – Jan. 1, April 1, July 1, Oct. 1 – the dates they should be replaced.

In case someone forgets, the newsletter always is there as a reminder.

“So you don’t have any excuse not to change your filter,” Bauer told Derek Scott during last week’s inspection.

Such continuing education is among the reasons Sarah Dreiling, a Realtor with Lawrence Realty Associates, includes Bauer on her roster of recommended inspectors.

“It’s a value-added service,” Dreiling said. “He’s very amenable to answering questions. :

“If I was going to have my own personal home inspected, I would hire Steve to do it.”

She just may get that chance.

Bauer says he has no intention of slowing down, figuring that he can reach 15,000 inspections before unbuckling the toolbelt, putting away the laptop and retiring from a profession that he still finds comfortable and challenging.

“I really enjoy what I do, and I enjoy staying busy with what I do,” he said.