What is a Home Inspection

A Home Inspection is a holistic overview of a house for day-to-day habitability, safety, and a broad scope of general information that the homeowner should have a sense of. These include a number of things ranging from the type of foundation to the roofing material, the age of the water heater to the manufacturer of the air conditioner, the functionality of kitchen appliances to the general safety of the deck, etcetera. Do note that a Home Inspection is not in any way a building code inspection; Home Inspectors simply test for function and safety and advise clients on what actions to take on possible issues that they find.

Limits of a Home Inspection

What we do is best described as a limited visual inspection. As a general rule of thumb, if the inspector would have to disassemble something, then it falls outside the scope of a normal Home Inspection. Furthermore, anything potentially unsafe to inspect due to inclement weather, adverse conditions, or possible defects will be reported as such and not directly inspected. Of course, should the building being inspected be occupied, due respect will be given to the current residents and their belongings if they should in some way interfere with the inspection process.

The Report

The final product, if you will, of a Home Inspection is a written report containing the inspector's findings. In days past, this would have been a physically written multi-page paper or checklist with a stack of photographs but, this being the digital age, most inspectors do it electronically. The software we use allows the inspection and photography to be carried out on a phone or tablet in real time, finalized on a computer at the office, and ultimately published with a link sent to you through email.

Expectations of the Client

Historically it was standard for the client to accompany the inspector on the day of the inspection and many would still prefer this to get a firsthand account of the process and findings as well as informal commentary. However, if circumstances are such that the client would prefer the inspector to carry out the inspection and simply send them the report afterwards, that's also totally fine. Everything important will be in the final report, and a layman's terms summary of the report will be included for easy reading if the more technical end of things is intimidating.