Getting
the Most From Your Home Inspection:
Even though more than 40% of resale contracts now carry Home Inspection
Contingency Clauses, few buyers really know how to get the greatest
benefit from this work.
Savvy home buyers need to know which houses are good deals, flaws
and all. This often requires that realistic relative comparisons
can be quickly made.
What You Should Be Doing When You Are Looking:
Do a little inspecting on your own when you visit potential houses
and you will become house and system savvy fast. Spending at least
10 inspection dedicated minutes in each house visited will provide
you with a wealth of information with which to make relative comparisons.
Unless you open and shut a number of types of windows, you really
will have very little on which to make a quality judgment. Here
are a dozen things to do in the next ten houses you visit.
1. Operate the heating and cooling systems. (Don't run air conditioning
if the weather is colder than 60 degrees.) Get an idea how quickly
the system responds, how evenly it seems to heat or cool, how forcefully
air comes out of the registers, its relative temperature, etc.
2. Open a few windows and doors. You will find a difference in the
types of windows and how well they operate and fit. Look for cloudiness,
indicating lost seals, between the glass layers of the double layered
types.
3. Open the faucets and flush the commodes. Get an idea what normal
water volume and pressure is like and observe how quickly the commodes,
tubs, and lavatories drain. Listen for noises in the piping systems
or the hardware.
4. Count the number of fuses and circuit breakers in the distribution
panel and compare the number to the size of the house and the equipment
within it. Newer homes have more circuits and a properly upgraded
older one will too.
5. Poke your head in the attic and see how thick the insulation
on the floor is and try to figure out what type it is.
6. Open the kitchen cabinet doors and drawers and get a feel for
the differences in quality. Ask how old the appliances are in an
effort to hone your appliance age guesstimating ability.
7. Look closely at the roofing shingles and note the flatness, texture,
shape, and coloring. Compare the various roofs you see and try to
notice how these qualities change with age. Observe only the roofs
of houses and try to guess the age of both the roofing and the house.
See if you can spot which roofing systems have been replaced.
8. Try to guess the age of the house when you pull up in front of
it. You will soon begin to approximate the age of a house by its
shape, window type, use of concrete for walks and driveways, variety
of landscaping, and a host of other external clues. Try to confirm
your guess by looking for a stamped date inside the toilet tank
lid or on county building inspection stickers on the electrical
distribution panel, or on date codes on the water heater, etc.
9. Observe the roof for protruding plumbing pipes and then scan
the windows on the walls and see if you can imagine the interior
room layout. Start with the entrance door and the stairs. Then place
the kitchen and the bathrooms (they are beneath those pipes poking
through the roof) and figure out where and what type of fuel and
heating equipment the house has from the chimney type and location.
10. Look for stains around the edges of basements. Many basements
will have stains, the tough part is trying to differentiate between
stains indicating a lot of water seepage and those which indicate
spillage from a washing machine or a backup from a basement entrance
drain. Also be on the lookout for 1/2 inch mortar splotches every
18 inches or so along basement walls or in the floor slab near the
basement walls. (This usually indicates that termite treatment has
been performed.) Try to locate damaged wood to see if the treatment
was prophylactic or prescriptive. Try to itemize how many different
locations display insulation and then ask yourself why different
houses vary so much in the placement of insulation.
11. Check the floors for stiffness. Raise up on your toes and drop
on your heels. Do this in the next 20 rooms you are in and note
the differences. Try this in your existing home.
12. Think of the house as one large object within which systems
and appliances cycle out. What has been updated in the house you
are looking at and when?
If you do this, you will be amazed at how astute you become with
the first ten houses. This exercise should prompt at least 100 new
questions. Use these questions to qualify any home inspector you
consider hiring. Ask what problems the home inspector expects to
find in the house you are contemplating buying. An experienced home
inspector usually knows just what to look for prior to entering
the building. If you don't get specifics maybe this inspector isn't
really experienced or isn't that anxious to help you.
Get prepared for the inspection. Make the longest list of questions
you can possibly think of.
Include every future plan you can conceive of:
Can this wall be moved?
Would a beam be necessary?
Should I expect to find plumbing, electrical, or duct work inside
that wall?
Would this kitchen be easy to expand?
What would be the best location for a first floor powder room?
How can I keep from getting ripped off by unscrupulous contractors.
What does it cost? What does it cost? What does it cost?
Can I do it myself?
What do I have to know to do it myself?
Would my skill level produce a satisfactory finished product?
Can this carport be enclosed?
Does the slab require a continuous footing?
Can a deck be built here and what wood would be the most practical
to use?
What is the range of costs I might expect?
Show me how to light the pilot light.
Where do I lubricate the circulator?
What should I expect from an oil burner maintenance contract?
How To Treat the Home Inspector:
Tell him right up front that you want to know everything he can
possibly tell you about the house. You want to know how it works,
how long it should last, what normally goes wrong with it, how to
fix what normally goes wrong with it, and what you should expect
to pay for the parts to fix it or to hire a pro to fix it for you.
A GOOD HOME INSPECTOR WILL LOVE YOU FOR THIS LEVEL OF INTEREST.
It keeps him on his toes and boosts the value of the work. Everybody
wins.
What To Expect In Your Written
FollowUp Report:
The best inspection services will provide you with a customized
home owners manual for the house. All significant systems and components
will be itemized along with the appropriate level of maintenance,
risk, warning and inspection limitation. Discovered problems will
be categorized into major or minor groupings according to safety
and repair/upgrade costs. Each problem should be completely described
along with the generalized what to, and how to, or repair.
The written report should put the house into perspective for you
by comparing it to its peers. Along with the physical profile of
the building, you should get a financial profile in that the repair
costs of problems should be approximated along with a projected
5 year maintenance budget.
Really good reports will indicate the likelihood of undiscovered
major or minor problems along with an indication of the subjectivity
of the inspectors' opinions. Quality reports usually include information
your insurance agent will need to know to write a policy on the
property.
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