House Detective: Making the Most of Home Inspection

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: Your comment about the building inspector who was “consumed with the zeal of high office” was so “spot on” and could be used in many situations. Many of us have dealt with variations of this person. Thanks for the smile it gave me. Mary Ann

Dear Mary Ann: A common problem with bureaucratic systems is that they tend to promote employees to their various levels of inefficiency. Once they reach the level at which they no longer do good work, they cease to be promoted. Instead, they remain in those positions until the day of retirement because most governmental systems preclude the likelihood of demotion or of being fired. Additionally, government employment can be a place of refuge for those whose talents are insufficient for the competitive demands of the marketplace. Bureaucracies also attract managers whose faulty decision making processes render them unacceptable to private employers whose main concern is customer satisfaction and a lucrative bottom line.

It should be emphasized, however, that not all bureaucrats are of this low caliber. There are many highly qualified people who also find themselves in government employment. But the percentage of sour apples in the bureaucratic barrel seems higher than one is likely to find in private business.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: As a buyer of homes in several states, I find the practice of real estate disclosure to be an unethical mess. In some states, disclosure is mandatory for sellers and agents, while in others, the laws are full of loopholes. Sellers rarely know what defects to disclose, and the agents wouldn’t recognize a defect if it was labeled. But the real slap in the face is from agents who recommend incompetent home inspectors. I never know the true condition of a home until I move in. If I then complain about the lack of disclosure, the sellers claim that they didn’t know, the agents pass the legal buck to the home inspector, and the inspector recites a list of disclaimers in the inspection contract. Disclosure, it seems, is a sad joke, but everyone is safe behind the letter of the law. This may be a rhetorical question, but what ever happened to disclosing defects simply because it’s the right thing to do? Harold

Dear Harold: Defect disclosure is hampered in two significant ways, and you have raised both issues. The first is the inability of many sellers, agents, or home inspectors to provide adequate disclosure. The second is a failure of some to recognize the ethical importance of disclosure.

Sellers in most states must provide a written statement of known defects. These disclosure statements rarely contain pertinent information because the majority of residential defects involve issues that homeowners seldom see and probably wouldn’t recognize, such as improper wiring in a breaker panel or a chimney defect in the attic. Sellers who are serious about disclosure should hire a qualified home inspector for a presale inspection.

Realtors in most states are required to disclose what they know. Degrees of compliance vary from one individual to the next, depending on what they learned in kindergarten. But the real litmus test of disclosure ethics involves the choice of home inspectors that agents refer to their trusting clients. Agents become familiar with the relative abilities of local inspectors. They know which inspectors are more or less thorough in their findings, and these impressions are widely discussed within real estate offices. For the agents who are truly ethical, only the most thorough inspectors will do for their clients. For the ethically disabled, those who had problems learning sandbox etiquette, the best inspectors are known as “deal killers.”

Home inspectors vary widely in their abilities to discover and disclose defects. The reason for this disparity is that home inspection is a learn-as-you-go business. It is not possible to be qualified at defect discovery without having been a full-time inspector for several years. This means that new inspectors must learn their trade at the expense of the first customers. After several hundred substandard inspections, the new inspector begins to catch on. After a few thousand, true competence begins to manifest. To paraphrase an old adage, “There are new home inspectors and true home inspectors, but there are no new, true home inspectors.”

Buyers can obtain adequate disclosure if they understand these realities. When you buy, don’t expect much in the way of disclosure from sellers or agents. They probably don’t have much to disclose and may or may not be committed to the ethical demands of the disclosure process. Instead, try to find a home inspector who is truly qualified: someone who has many years of experience, who has inspected thousands of properties, and who has a reputation for detailed, uncompromised thoroughness. A top-gun home inspector will provide the disclosure you’re seeking, and for once, you’ll know what you’re buying, before you buy it.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: Home inspectors perform an inadequate service, a fact that is overlooked in your column. I hired an inspector not long ago and found his work to be a complete waste of money. All he did was look around and report the obvious. I could have done as much myself instead of paying a so-called “expert.” Homebuyers deserve better than this. For example, why don’t home inspectors look under carpets for asbestos, mold, or signs of vermin? Your interest in promoting home inspectors prevents you from understanding this. Get a clue. William

Dear William: Home inspection can be a waste of money or a valuable benefit, depending on the quality of the home inspector you hire. If your home inspector did little more than “look around,” you have a legitimate grievance, but not a case against an entire profession.

This column frequently identifies negligent home inspectors, but it also recommends inspectors who are qualified and experienced, who provide detailed evaluations of homes, and who disclose defects that could not be found in the course of a simple “look around.” For example, an inspector I know found the following defects in just the past week:

1. Over-spanned framing in an attic, causing the roof to sag.
2. Rust damage in the burner chamber of a gas furnace.
3. A disconnected safety shutoff switch in a forced air furnace.
4. Circuit breakers that were oversized for the wires in the circuit.
5. Faulty grounding in an electrical subpanel.
6. Buried gas piping that lacked rust protection.
7. A bathtub whirlpool pump that was not grounded.
8. Lack of tempered safety glass at a staircase landing.
9. A fireplace chimney that was too short at the roof.
10. Improper placement of piers under a home.
    

These are typical examples of defects routinely reported by qualified home inspectors; defects that would not be discovered by homebuyers conducting their own walkthrough inspection or by inspectors with inadequate experience.

As for your suggestion that home inspectors check beneath carpets for asbestos, mold, or vermin:

1. How much carpet should home inspectors lift? Should they raise a few corners or totally roll back the carpets in each room? If they don’t do it all, how can we be sure they will not miss a serious problem?
2. How do we explain to sellers that we must move their furniture to enable inspection beneath the carpets? If sellers agree to this intrusive process, how many additional hours will be needed to complete the inspection, and how much should inspectors charge for this additional time?
3. If furniture or personal items are damaged while being moved (i.e. a broken vase or a scratched table), who should pay for repair or replacement?
4. Once the carpets have been laid back down, who should pay the carpet layer who refastens the edges to the tack strips?
   

Practicality imposes reasonable limits on home inspectors. An inspector cannot view everything without creating unacceptable problems. In spite of these restraints, a truly qualified home inspector can find considerable numbers of defects, providing valuable disclosure to home buyers. If you should ever hire another inspector, be sure to find someone who is truly qualified.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: I am 68 years old, with relatively good health, and I am looking for another career. What about home inspection? I’ve just signed up for a 7-week course, beginning soon. Am I at that age where home inspection work is too demanding, or do you think I’ll be ok? Tom

Dear Tom: It depends on what shape you are in. How do you feel about crawling under houses, with barely enough room to move, or through an attic, snaking your way through trusses, ankle deep in fiberglass insulation, while brushing dusty webs from your face? If those working conditions are acceptable, you’ve overcome the second worst aspect of home inspecting.

The real deterrent is the legal liability. Homebuyers will base major purchase decisions on your findings. If you miss any defects in the course of your inspections (and all home inspectors do miss things; especially when they are new to the profession), you could be held liable. Aside from that, home inspection is a challenging and interesting way to make a living, even in the active years of early seniority.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: When we bought our home, our home inspector said the water heater was OK. But when we moved in, the hot water was orange at all of the faucets. So we called a service company. They said the inside of the tank was completely rusted, and we paid them $1000.00 to replace the fixture. When we called our home inspector about this, he said that he had operated all of the faucets, and the water had been clear at that time. He also stated that he is not responsible if something is now wrong. Is he really not liable? Tammi

Dear Tammi: Many of the questions I receive from readers are pointed complaints against home inspectors. Some of these involve professional negligence by inspectors, while others reflect basic misunderstandings about the scope of a home inspection or the nature of various home defects. To fairly address your water heater situation, there are some issues that need to be clarified regarding rusted plumbing and what may or may not have been apparent on the day of the inspection.

The rust-colored water at your faucets can come from a rusted water heater of from from old rusted water pipes. In either case, discolored water may not always be apparent. For example, if the house was occupied on the day of the home inspection, then the occupants were using water on a daily basis. With regular use, the water would be clear because there would be no build-up of loose rust particles. But several days or weeks of vacancy would allow loosened rust debris to settle in the water heater, the pipes, or both. If that were the case, when you moved in and turned on the various faucets, the settled rust would have flowed with the water, and the rusty color would then have been apparent. This may or may not have been what occurred in your home, but it is one possibility to be considered in addressing your concerns.

Another variable is the seeming certainty of the “service company” (or was that a plumber?) regarding the interior condition of the water heater tank. The inside of a water heater is not exposed and cannot be inspected. A further concern as to the credibility of the service company is the cost of replacing the water heater. A typical water heater replacement costs approximately $600. The fixture itself should have cost about $250. So what was the hourly rate for labor?

As for the home inspector, it is surprising that he found no problems with the water heater, since most water heaters are not installed in full compliance with plumbing code requirements. Also, if the water heater was badly rusted, then it was old. A thorough inspection of a water heater includes an age estimate of the fixture. If the unit was old, this should have been noted in the inspection report as an indication that the water heater may have had limited remaining life.

The home inspector’s statement that he is “not responsible if something is now wrong,” needs some clarification. As often stated in this column, home inspectors are liable for conditions that are visible and accessible at the time of the inspection. If something was visible, accessible, and “wrong,” then the inspector would be liable, unless the defect involved a component that was not within the scope of a home inspection.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: I’m writing to shred an article on your website that deals with home inspector liability. In it you say, “One way that home inspectors have addressed liability is to limit the scope of an inspection to defects that are visible and readily accessible.” This seems to be a blanket justification for the failure of home inspectors to report defects. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, inspection is defined as: “View or examine closely and critically especially in order to assess quality for shortcomings….” Given that definition, home inspectors don’t inspect: they express personal opinions. One solution would be for buyers and sellers to conduct their own inspections for obvious defects, instead of allowing home inspectors to pick their pockets. This would help to reduce the escalating costs of buying a home, typically caused by attorneys and others who ride the lucrative real estate gravy train. Edward

Dear Edward: The home inspection process is well defined by the Oxford Dictionary. But shouldn’t that definition be limited to conditions that are apparent to the five senses? Or should home inspectors be liable for conditions that are concealed within construction, beneath the ground, or behind personal property? To be consistent with your blanket condemnation of the home inspection profession, the Oxford definition could be modified to read, “View or examine closely and critically those conditions that are visible and accessible, as well as those that are not.”

The suggestion that buyers and sellers should conduct their own inspections invites an answer that is longer than the space of this column. To summarize, we should consider the following questions: How many buyers and sellers would be able to evaluate the wiring in an electric service panel? Would they recognize conditions involving over-fusing, improper grounding, or the use of a breaker panel as a raceway? How many would be willing to crawl through the dank web-infested recesses beneath a house or the dusty darkness of an attic? And if they did so, how many would recognize a significant defect in the foundations or framing? How many could identify faulty plumbing and electrical installations; or evidence of seasonal flooding after the soil below the building had become dry; or noncomplying gas piping, gas unions, or gas valves; or a flue pipe that is too close to combustible materials; or the lack of required ventilation; or inadequate clearance at a chimney? How many could evaluate the functional and safety aspects of a water heater or a furnace? How many could determine the quality, condition, and proper installation of a roof, regardless of the type of roof being inspected?

The answers here are obvious. Someone with professional knowledge and experience is needed to provide adequate and reliable information about the conditions in, on, under, and around a home. This, of course, does not mean that everyone who assumes the title of Home Inspector is sufficiently qualified. But among those home inspectors who are qualified, the services they provide are valuable, substantial, and not to be compared with the pilfery of a pickpocket.

The House Detective by Barry Stone, Certified Home Inspector

Dear Barry: My agent told me that, for legal reasons, she was not able to recommend a home inspector. She said I would have to find one on my own. Is this a normal practice for agents? Shirley

Dear Shirley: Some agents are afraid to recommend home inspectors for fear of being liable if the inspector they recommend does not do a thorough job of disclosing defects. But not all agents take this approach. Some avoid liability by giving their clients a list of home inspectors from which to choose. The best agents, however, recommend only the most thorough home inspectors. In this way, they serve the interests of their clients, while limiting their liability. On the other hand, there are agents who increase their liability by recommending marginally qualified home inspectors — ones who are not very thorough.

If you need to find your own home inspector, call several real estate offices in your area and ask who are the most thorough and experienced home inspectors available.