Your Home, Your Family, Your Trust

 Honesty, integrity, personable, thoroughness and value for your dollar are only a few of the words that describe me and the services provided. I work for you, the client, and no one else! The first concern is to provide a thorough and accurate home inspection report, as well as making your home inspection experience a pleasant one.

My philosophy of service does not stop with the delivery of your home inspection report. So many service companies perform their service, collect their money and never want to hear from you again, unless of course more money is involved. I believe in maintaining a long term relationship with you, without the incentive of additional money. Do you have a question regarding your home inspection report well after the fact?

 Contact me and let’s discuss it. Do you just have a question regarding your home?

 Contact me and if I can’t answer your questions I will do whatever I can to find the resources you need to answer that question.

The importance of a home inspection can not be stressed enough. You need all of the information you can obtain prior to buying the home. Whether you are buying a newly built home or an existing home a professional home inspection can:

– Identify safety issues to protect your family from harm.

– Identify issues to help prevent future costly expenses.

– Provide a condition report to be used for future reference in the maintenance and care of your home.

Without a doubt buying a home is a stressful and demanding endeavor! Buying an existing home takes time and patience to find just the right one. Building a new home adds an entirely new set of concerns, time requirements and level of stress. Your builder wants to build a quality home for you and your real estate agent wants you’re home purchase and ownership experience to be satisfactory. Both will do what they can to make your dream come true. But they too are very busy people and limited in what, and the amount of, services they can provide you. Ultimately it is up to you, the new home owner, to ensure you are receiving a well built home!!

Prior to closing on your new home you will perform a final walk through with the builder and/or their agent. During this walk through you will be provided explanations of your home’s features, appliances and many other items. But what about the foundation, structural, mechanical and other major systems?

These are expected to be in new and prime condition. Sometimes missed issues are present regardless of how many quality control checks are performed. Some of these issues may cause significant inconveniences to correct after you move in, or may be missed before the first phases of your new home warranty period ends.

I can help you relieve these concerns and worries with a final inspection of the building process. This inspection is generally referred to as a “Pre-closing Inspection”. These inspections are geared to look for those items and provide you with the opportunity to address them prior to closing and/or moving in. I can also provide additional checks for the many things more cosmetic in nature.

You need a Home Inspector! When you hire a Home Inspector, you are hiring a professional who has training and experience in identifying issues within a home. It is the Home Inspector’s function to inspect the condition of the house’s major systems and to determine how well these systems are working together to identify areas that need to be watched, repaired or replaced. Your Home Inspector is a generalist who specializes in providing an overall analysis of the home you are purchasing. If the Home Inspector identifies the need for a costly, detailed analysis of any of the home’s systems or structures, the Home Inspector will recommend you contact the appropriate professional with expertise in analyzing that particular system or part of the home. The need for this kind of expensive, detailed analysis is generally not required so the Home Inspector helps save you time and money.

Each home is unique and deserving of all the time necessary to properly and thoroughly complete the inspection.  There are also unexpected delays that can occur during the home inspection. Under perfect conditions I may be able to complete a home inspection quickly, in as little as two to three hours. However, as we all know, perfect conditions are not encountered often. A home inspection of all areas that can possibly, and safely, be accessed takes time! Also you certainly deserve a thorough report and value for your home inspection fee!

As such it is not appropriate to try and determine how long a home inspection will take to complete. Even the smallest home may require additional time and care to inspect. If your Home Inspector is quoting specific, quick completion times you should be cautious! This may lead to inspecting to minimums, missing or omitting important items, and a very cursory home inspection.

You are always welcome to attend the home inspection during the entire process. However, the process may be quite lengthy in time, depending on the conditions at hand. We do recommend that you allow us to perform the home inspection process first. Just prior to completion we can meet me at the home and I will perform a thorough review of the findings, with a complete walk around the property, discussing any questions you may have. I have found this to be the least disruptive to your day, help prevent me from missing anything of importance and a more pleasurable experience for you.

Determining the life expectancy of a home’s components is a very inexact process. There are too many variables to consider and the results are, at best, a guess of life expectancy. In addition conditions can change very rapidly after an inspection that could change the life expectancy of a home’s components. There are also many conditions that can not be seen without disassembly, destructive testing or violating licensing laws of other trades. It would be a significant disservice to you to raise, or lower, your expectations simply to provide what appears to be an added value to your report.

For home buyers you should begin looking for a Home Inspector when you have decided to start your search for a home. This will allow you to immediately call your chosen Home Inspector when your purchase offer is accepted. It is important that you call your chosen Home Inspector as soon as possible to provide them sufficient time to perform the home inspection, provide you sufficient time to review the home inspection report, and formulate decisions based on the results. If you have chosen a Home Inspector prior to making an offer on a property it would be helpful to notify them of the offer beforehand so that they may plan for your home inspection.

For home sellers I highly recommend you call a Home Inspector before approaching a Real Estate Broker or Agent. This will provide you the opportunity to repair any issues found without interrupting the selling process or allow you and your selling Agent the opportunity to discuss fair and equitable listing details and arrangements. This certainly does not mean that you can not have a home inspection after listing the home for sale. For a home that has had many viewings but no offers or lost deals, a home inspection may uncover issues that could have been overlooked by everyone but the buyers or their Home Inspector.

For homeowners just interested in the condition of their home, I recommend scheduling the home inspection at your earliest convenience.   Some home inspection agencies recommend an annual inspection to keep on top of the home’s maintenance requirements. I feel that no one knows their home better than the owner, and the owner should decide on this interval.

You may be able to perform a cursory home inspection of the home, but you may also miss or misjudge issues that can be very important to your decision.  After all, you have selected the home for various reasons and may overlook an issue because of your desire to own that home.  As a Professional Home Inspector I am trained and experienced to look for those issues that can be easily overlooked by others.  I will perform an objective and impartial inspection of the home and report on those issues found. This can help provide peace of mind about the home you own, or are about to purchase, and may save you considerable amounts of money later. The home inspection results can also help you budget for possible repairs that may be needed.

There are those that may have specialized knowledge on one or more components in a home and may be comfortable inspecting those parts themselves. I do understand but highly recommend a full home inspection just to prevent overlooking issues. If you still feel comfortable with your inspection of that particular system or components, then we can discuss the customized home inspection packages to help reduce your home inspection costs.

The real answer to this is how can you justify not having a home inspection? Regardless of whether any issues are discovered or not, you now can have the peace of mind knowing what the condition of your home is. With a report of issues found you will be able to discuss these with reputable contractors and budget for repairs and replacements. The report can also become a valuable tool for monitoring your home’s condition over time.The cost of a home inspection is significantly less than the possible expenses later, and very minor when compared to the value of your home.

The day of your home inspection I will meet with you at the home to review the preliminary findings.  I will provide a written inspection report within the same day of the home inspection completion. The report will be in Portable Document Format ( .pdf ) and delivered to you via email.  If you do not have access to email I can email the report to any email address you like. A printed copy is available upon request.