Home Inspection News & Articles

Common Home Inspection Defects

Most people these days are convinced that they must have a home inspection before they purchase a house. Many of them have heard the horror stories about people who bought homes without a home inspection, and then learned the house had tons of problems when they got the keys.

Thanks to cable stations like TLC and HGTV, Americans are learning more and more about buying and remodeling homes; and in most cases, the programs responsibly promote having an inspection before purchasing a house.

So with that settled: what kinds of defects and problems do home inspectors find? The answer is, you name it, and they find it; yet there are some common defects that can make you reconsider buying a home.

Water damage is one of the big things that home inspectors are on the look out for. Whether it's a damp smell in the basement or water stains on the ceiling, evidence of water damage can point to mildew and plumbing problems.

Another big deal for home inspectors is the foundation of a house. This is something that you would never know how to evaluate or check by yourself, but if your house is built on a bad foundation, it can lead to real problems. A house with a cracked foundation is a big deal -- as a home buyer, you would want to know about a problem of this magnitude before buying a house.

The roof is also a critical area. You probably wouldn't know a good roof from a bad one, but a home inspector can determine how old the roof is and offer some general guidelines of when it should be replaced. Most people don't like to spend thousands of dollars on a roof that can't be seen. Spending thousands on landscaping or a new pool is easy to do, but forking over thousands for a new roof is not an exciting prospect. Because of this, many people own a home and sell it without ever having done any work to the roof. If you are not careful, you may buy a house and then have to immediately invest in a new roof.

While it's important to stress that home inspectors are neither electricians nor experts on county code violations, they should be able to spot defective or poorly installed electrical wiring in the house. When you're talking electricity, you're talking about safety for you and your family.

Discovering some of the problems mentioned above will be enough to scare away some home buyers, but problems like these can also be powerful negotiating tools if you really want the house. Your real estate agent should be able to use this kind of information to do one of two things: either request that the owner lower the price, or ask the owner to fix the problem before you purchase the house.

Home buyers must ask themselves how badly they want a particular house and what kinds of compromises they are willing to make. The bottom line is that all houses have problems; it's just a matter of your comfort level when you make the decision to buy.

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You Can't Insulate Yourself from the Insulation Inspection

Many people mistakenly think that insulation is only for homes in cold climates; and while this was true as recently as thirty years ago, everything has now changed. These days you're as likely to find insulation in Miami as you are in Maine, and the reason is the same in both cases - energy efficiency. And if you want to become a home inspector, this is an important development to keep in mind.

So for home inspectors in warm climates, one of the first tasks in the home inspection process is to learn if the house has insulation, which is becoming more important as larger numbers of Americans rely on air conditioning to cool their homes. Proper insulation in a warm-weather home will help reduce a home owner's energy bill. When looking at your new home inspection checklist, this question won't be as pressing because all new homes, wherever they are built, will have insulation.

There are three spots where one will find insulation: attics, walls and floors. To check out the attic, locate the crawl space opening in the ceiling and take a look and see what's between the rafters. Generally it shouldn't be necessary to climb up into the attic, but if you must, then be sure to wear a face mask.

Determining whether there is insulation in the walls is a bit trickier. Overall a good strategy is to take off one of the plates covering an electrical circuit box (make sure you first go to the circuit breaker box and cut the electricity). There's usually a little gap between the wallboard and the circuit box where you can slip in a screwdriver and learn if there is any insulation present; a flashlight may even spotlight the furry pink stuff as well. If you have no luck, try another electrical circuit box in the room, if that too turns up empty, you probably have your answer.

Finally, home inspectors must check to see if the floors are insulated. This is much easier than checking the walls, for all one needs to do is get into a crawlspace to see if there are insulation bats in between the floors joists. If the house has a basement, it's as easy as taking a stroll down the cellar steps and looking up at the floor from below. Starting a home inspection business means you'll cover the house from top to bottom.

Just as a home inspector must be insulated against the vagaries of weather, prospective home inspectors must protect their future careers by enrolling in an accredited, home inspection program. Online home inspection courses come in all shapes and sizes, so it is important that a distance education home inspection school be an accredited member of the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC). Allied Schools

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