The surprise PWA
A full homeowner hub built as a progressive web app, quietly dropped into an existing site in a weekend.
Bluegrass Home Inspections serves homeowners in and around Owensboro, KY. Standard inspectors hand you a PDF and disappear. The Homeowner Hub is the opposite — a lightweight app where the homeowner has everything in one place after their inspection: report, annotated photos, seasonal reminders, contractor referrals, and a chat with the inspector's office.
What was going on
David Johnson, the owner, didn't ask for a PWA. He asked for a way to keep the relationship with the homeowner warm past closing. The PWA format keeps it off the app stores (zero friction) while giving it offline-first behavior for a homeowner thumbing through their report in a basement with bad signal.
How I worked it
- 01
PWA installed to home-screen without an app store.
- 02
Offline-first: the inspection report, photos, and reminders are cached the first time the homeowner opens the link, so nothing depends on carrier signal during the walkthrough.
- 03
Scheduled seasonal check-ins fire via web push — gutter cleaning in October, water heater flush in spring.
- 04
Chat widget wired to Claude Haiku with the business's actual knowledge + scheduling tools.
The parts worth naming
- Install prompt
Custom iOS install helper — Apple still doesn't surface it cleanly.
- Seasonal reminders
Configurable per zone / climate; content written for real homeowners.
- Offline manifest
Report + photos stored in IndexedDB after first open.
What shipped
Shipped as a quiet surprise upgrade to David's existing site. Measuring install rate + repeat engagement over the first 60 days.
- Shipped in
- Two weekends
- Install rate (T30)
- [todo] {{TODO: confirm with Michael — 2026-04-23}}
- Return visits / homeowner
- [todo] {{TODO: confirm with Michael — 2026-04-23}}
- Surprise factor
- High
What it was built with
- Next.js
- PWA
- IndexedDB
- Tailwind
- Service Worker
- Web Push
- Claude API