Practice Does Not Make Perfect

Practice Does Not Make Perfect

(Only perfect practice makes perfect)

I recently had the opportunity to review another inspector’s Home Inspection Report.  One of my students is selling his grandmother’s house and the student brought me the report that one prospective buyer had used to get out of the transaction.  The report I saw was created by a Home Inspector that I know. This Home Inspector has been doing business longer than I and, in my opinion, performed a perfectly good inspection on that house.  I previously had the opportunity to do a walk-thru inspection of that same house with my student prior to reviewing the other inspection report.  This made me familiar with the issues he found and reported.

His report and style of reporting prompted several thoughts about how Home Inspectors perform their craft:

 

1.   The other Home Inspector completed an adequate, professional inspection, and found a legitimate issue that got his client out of the transaction with no arguments from anyone involved.

2.   The Inspector’s findings were clearly stated in his report and there was absolutely no confusion as to the major issue. 

3.   I was ‘put off’ by the format of this report; I did not like it, but I had to admit it was perfectly functional and met all the basic requirements of a professional Home Inspection Report.  The Inspection and report served the client even though it was lacking many of the modern improvements and benefits of the reporting style I prefer.

 

His report had no pictures. The report did not go into detail. The Inspector used a style of language that I would never have used and reported on things I believe are better left out of a Home Inspection Report.   

We Home Inspectors have our own comfort zones when it comes to reports.  We are likely never going to report what we find the same way another inspector does, and yet differing styles are capable to do the job (if done well).

What I take away from this is the way someone first learns to inspect and to report is critical to who he or she becomes as a Home Inspector.  It is very doubtful that a Home Inspector will ever vary far from the way he first learned the job.  After six months to a year of doing this job the habits are formed which allow us to get comfortable with the way we do things like write our reports.  We will probably never change.   

This gentleman learned how to perform a home inspection 20 years ago.  He does not use pictures in his reports and I am doubtful he ever will.  Luckily he is performing his inspections well, despite being behind the times.  I am sure many inspectors are out there and comfortable in their improper, inadequate and perhaps dangerously habituated methods. They are just as unlikely to change until something goes terribly wrong for them or for someone else. 

This really underscores the importance of learning to do this job the right way, practicing proper methods from the beginning.