Home Inspection Reports: What Makes Them Good?
What exactly are home inspection reports? More to the point, what do you get out of a good one? Anyone with a home inspector’s license can offer you a report, but is it worth having? Is it worth the cost of home inspection? Read on and discover what critical elements constitute a great home inspection report.
Every area of the home should be covered in a general home inspection, from the basement to your attic. For the plumbing, the inspector will look at the toilets, showers, sinks, and pipes. The circuit breakers, electrical outlets, light fixtures, and wiring should be inspected. Any air conditioners, water heaters, furnaces, and ventilation ducts should also be inspected.
On the exterior, the inspector should look at the fence, the sidewalk, and the driveway. The status of any and all windows, doors, and walls should be determined next. Areas of drainage should then be inspected, if any exist. The roof will be the next to be inspected, but it should be noted that most general home inspections do not include a roof certification as part of the general service. The roof of the home is enough of a monster that it often requires its own, specialized inspection and this should be considered if the roof appears to be in bad shape.
The garage is an important aspect of the home, so it will also be inspected. The most important areas are the condition of the floor slab, the firewall, the ventilation, and the roof.
Once finished you will receive a home inspection report containing a list of concerns. These areas may not necessarily be a problem now, but they could end up becoming problems later. Roofs that have a short life expectancy, any malfunctions in the air conditioning or heating systems, any defects in the foundation, any drainage issues; all these could become serious problems if they are not taken care of within a reasonable amount of time.
Is it worth the home inspector cost to have a general inspection? The answer is yes, it is worth it. A good report will show you the condition of every aspect of the home at the time it was inspected, as well as marking down areas of concern that should be followed up on. If you need roof inspections or a mold review, the inspector can help you set up an appointment at a later date. The service can also provide you with great home inspection tips so you can do a preliminary inspection before anyone even arrives.
IN-SPEC Property has provided quality home inspection reports to Long Island for years. Go to their website and get an expert NY home inspector sent to you today!
5 Things Typically Overlooked In A Home Inspection
You can’t be too careful when buying a home. The seller and realtor may not be telling you the whole story. Both of them want to sell the home to you or to someone else at the highest price they can attain, so it’s doubtful they want to highlight all the home’s problems to you.
It’s in situations like this you want an expert Long Island home inspector to come in and provide you with home inspection reports that either confirm what the seller and realtor are telling you, or provide you with ammunition to bargain for a lower price on the home. If you know what needs to be fixed on the home you can add this to your negotiations or back out of the deal entirely.
This raises another question: how reliable is your home inspector? And is the added bargaining power worth the cost of home inspection? The answer to the second one is yes, it is worth it to have your home inspected. But, it is only worth it if the residential inspector is honest and reliable.
Following are five items that the typical home inspector could overlook:
1. Kitchen Sink - Flow rate, water discoloration, and obvious leaks are what an inspector will be focusing on. He should also look for less obvious leaks and determine how hot or cold the water can get. These can get overlooked, however.
2. Electrical Outlets - as important as it is to know how functional and safe these little guys are, it’s possible that a few of them can be overlooked.
3. Basement Water - the inspector’s focus here should be on finding signs of water damage in the basement, but this can be missed if a lot of work has been recently done on the basement that obscures the obvious signs from view.
4. Attic - mold and insects are the primary concern of an attic inspection. This is only one aspect of the inspection. The stability and load-bearing capability of the attic floor is an equally important area of concern that is sometimes overlooked. As an attic will likely be used for storage, you should know its limits!
5. Roof – an inspector should gain access to the roof so he can closely examine it for any defects or damage. Sometimes an inspector will try to pass off an inspection from the ground using binoculars, especially if the roof is tall and large parts of it are visible from the ground. While this can work in certain cases, the risk of overlooking something is much higher than a physical inspection.
On average, a home inspection takes anywhere from two to four hours, mostly depending on the size of the home. If the inspector is finished in a lot less time, he may have rushed through. Oversights and mistakes can result from rushing like this.
Look to a home inspection service that promises to provide its Long Island home inspectors with the time they need to do a superb job inspecting your home.
IN-SPEC Property has provided great home inspection reports to Long Island for years. Go to their webpage and get an expert Long Island home inspector sent to your home today!