Home Inspection Training

Home Inspection Training

 

ALL students that start a home inspection training program believe they are there to learn about the house.  Some know that they need to be trained how to inspect a house. Few know they need to learn how to report on the house.  All students (even those who arrive from related businesses like construction or real estate sales) are unaware that much of the subtle but very real training of how to be a competent home inspector involves learning the relationships between all the different players involved in the real estate transaction (or sale and purchase of a house).

The players are: The buyer; the seller; the buyer’s attorney; the seller’s attorney; the buyer’s realtor; the seller’s realtor; the real estate brokers; the contractors and vendors that provide quotes, and the home inspector.  Each of these players has a different take, perspective, and motivation regarding the transaction; each has different terminology describing what is happening and what needs to be done during this complex process.  Many times misunderstanding about what one another’s job entails and confusion about terminology leads to bad feelings, damaged reputations and can even kill deals.

For example, I just got off of the phone with a client whose attorney was questioning if I had performed mold testing.  My client became concerned because he now thought that because the attorney asked for a mold test that it must be a standard service that I neglected to perform.  I am not aware if this attorney is a specialist in real estate law, but his misunderstanding about the scope of a home inspection has raised doubts in my client about my inspection.  In the attorney’s effort to protect his client he questioned my thoroughness.  If this attorney knew that the home inspector can only point out what appears to be mold-like substances during the inspection, and recommend a mold specialist come for further testing and recommendations about the possible need for remediation, he would not have put me in the awkward position of explaining his error. 

The attorney could have thoroughly read my report as part of his service.  My report clearly stated that at the time of my inspection of the attic I found no indication of any mold-like substance or conditions to support its growth.  I also included a disclaimer stating ‘…that this is not a mold inspection …and only a mold specialist can determine the presence of mold and make recommendations…’

My answer to the client who called about the mold “test” was, “No, I did not recommend that you have a mold test performed because I found no mold-like substance during the home inspection.  I then explained to the client that mold is everywhere and on every surface, but what we are looking for is visible evidence of a substance that may appear to be a colony of mold.  If we find that, we then call out the mold specialist to determine the cost of treatment and of remediation.  The attorney really did not understand the difference between a mold test and that part of a home inspection that may report evidence of what appears to be mold.

Only experience teaches the inspector all of the subtle intricacies of home inspection and how the needs of each of the different players is intertwined and involved.  This is only one of the reasons why I don’t believe anyone can learn this business in a program that meets four days a week over a three week period.  It takes time to understand the roles of each of the players and what they need to do to perform their job.  The home inspector is the expert in his area and has done this hundreds, and possibly thousands, of times.  It is incumbent upon him to be able to explain the process to the buyer since, in the end, protecting the buyer is our main objective.

The "upset" email

The “upset” email

Often when a client has a problem with your Home Inspection they notify you by way of an email.  People generally don’t call with complaints because they are afraid of the confrontation.  There is nothing wrong with contacting someone via email but we hope that the first contact is not notification that we are being taken to court.

Over the span of 10 years and after performing over two thousand, two hundred inspections I have been involved in 15 situations that ended with dissatisfied clients.  One was my fault and I paid some restitution for my error. One wasn’t my fault but I paid-up anyway.  (My clients were a young couple who were just staring out and I felt sorry for them).  The other dozen or so were people trying to get me to pay (or more accurately to get my insurance company to pay) for something wrong with their house that developed months after they moved in. Apparently lots of people are under the false assumption that having a Home Inspection is like buying a warranty on all the systems of a house!

The most recent situation involved a single woman for whom I inspected a house three years ago. She purchased the house and presumably there were no problems until a year ago when Hurricane Irene blew through and a skylight in the addition started leaking.  An unscrupulous roofer looked at the leak and charged her $6,000.00 for a complete new roof. He told her the Home Inspector should have caught the defective roof, and she would have no problem getting the inspector’s insurance company to pay for the new one.  Two months after the roofing job was finished she brought me to small claims court. 

Among the many mistakes she made in this situation most importantly she did not call the Home Inspector (me) to try and resolve the complaint as soon as it was noticed.  I could have explained about the nature of the inspection and that it is not a lifetime guarantee. I would have pointed out the extreme nature of the storm situation, and that nobody could have reasonably foreseen that this leak would occur two years in the future. I would have explained also that the Home Inspector is usually only responsible for the inspection fee; except in cases of gross negligence. I could have also counseled her to shop around for a contractor before having major work done.  The roof was architectural shingle approximately three years old; at the time I inspected the house, and likely did not need a complete replacement.

The bottom line is the judge is probably still laughing about this case.  He looked at her and said, “You have to prove that when the inspector looked at this roof he should have known it was defective.”  She withdrew her suit.

The thing I have learned over the years is; if you find you have a problem, immediately follow-up on it (whether by email or phone), don’t procrastinate, it only makes the situation worse. It is good business to inform your client at the time of the inspection of your availability should any questions or problems arise.  Encourage them to call or email you before a problem goes too far.  Follow up with your client a month or so after the inspection to be sure all is well.

We Home Inspectors understand the misconceptions about this business and are happy to clarify the true nature of our services.  Inspectors are usually good about giving advice (as long as it is only a courtesy service) in regard to repairs and contractors.  If a mistake has been made by an inspector, he deserves the opportunity to make it right, without litigation, if possible. And believe me, the burden of proof that belongs to the plaintiff is a tough sell in court- even if there was an oversight.

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.

Inspecting a Private Well

Inspecting a Private Well

 

 

Home Inspectors conduct inspections along a set of SOP’s or Standards of Practice.  These establish some boundaries to tell inspectors and clients what is involved in a Home Inspection and what is not.  These boundaries are not always hard and fast, no matter how clearly they are worded.  The SOP’s clearly state that a home inspector “…shall observe and report on the readily accessible; roofing materials and condition; roof drainage systems; flashing; skylights, chimneys and roof penetrations.”  However, nowhere does it mention that an inspector must walk the roof to do this.  Many inspectors do, but many; myself included; do not ever get up on a pitched roof to inspect it. It is a judgment call in either case, and no blame can be laid on either side for their choice.

 

Many services an inspector provides fall beyond the literal scope of the SOP’s. For example, there in our SOP’s it says … “home inspectors do not inspect underground systems or items such as septic systems or private wells…”  Nothing could be plainer than that, simple, done, let’s move on.  However, is that the end of our responsibility? Does that take us off the hook as far as our service to our clients?  Legally yes; but this is one of those gray areas that I think home inspectors define for themselves.  Most home inspectors will do what they feel comfortable with and will consult the SOP’s only as their guidelines.

 

I think that even though the SOP says we don’t inspect wells, we should at least try to provide guidance for our client.  The measurement term that is used by well drilling companies to determine if the well is ‘good’ or not is the “Recovery Rate”.  How many gallons per minute will it recover or fill back up?  This is a test Home Inspectors do not do because it requires specialized equipment and a certain amount of disassembling.  This test provides the number that determines between a ‘good’ well and a ‘bad’.

 

But just because we cannot do that test does not mean we can’t tell them about the condition of the well equipment that we can see, and it doesn’t mean that we can’t tell them about the quantity of water available.  That’s why home inspectors will inspect the pressure tank, switch assembly, and pressure gauge.  Most home inspectors will perform a well flow test and watch the operation of the system during that test.

 

A word of caution when performing a well flow test; explain to your client that the well flow test does not indicate the well is ‘good’ or ‘bad’.  Often the client thinks that because the well passed the well flow test, that it means the well is good.  There could be nothing further from the truth.  This is the opportunity to instruct and educate your client to the importance of having the experts come out to perform the proper testing.

Well Pumps

Well Pumps

 

I attended a Continuing Education class yesterday and the subject for 3 hours was Shallow and Drilled wells.  The speaker was from a company that has been in the business for 65 years, he is a 3^rd generation owner of a well drilling company, so I feel comfortable with his knowledge base.  This type of focused topic class is extremely important because it provides the opportunity to learn in-depth information about one particular area of expertise.  A house has many different areas to learn and it takes a long time to become even conversant in all of them.  It is a very long journey before you know everything there is to know about houses.  I doubt if anyone has ever got to the end.

When inspecting a home whose water source is a private well one needs to get as much information as possible from the few visible clues provided.  This is important because there is a significant difference in the value of a drilled well as compared to the value of a shallow well.  If the house is advertised as a drilled well and you have a shallow well pump (one pipe pump) it raises a red flag and you should alert your client to the fact it may not be what is advertised.  Of course, Home Inspectors do not inspect wells and determining if it is a good well or a bad well is up to the well drilling professional, but we should be looking for signs of possible issues. 

I once had a client who said that the house he was interested in was on a drilled well.  During the inspection things just didn’t look right. I went out to the back yard and just lifted the well-head.  It was merely a casing placed in the back yard with no well under it.  The shallow well and the pump were in a small shed further back on the property.  Nobody was happy; but my client was happier to know about this situation ahead of the closing.

Another situation I have encountered and have been unsure about is where a two pipe pump fits into the story of wells.  My understanding was that a two pipe pump is used when the water is further than 20 – 30 feet from the pressure tank.  However, when I saw a two pipe pump I would ask myself, “Does it mean it’s a shallow well that is far away? Or is it a drilled well that does not have a submersible pump?”  I think I got my answer yesterday.  Our expert informed the class that most of the time when you see a two pipe pump in the basement it means that you have a drilled well.  Two pipe pumps were used for drilled wells before submersible pumps became the norm.   In the past I would see a two pipe pump and couldn’t determine for my client with surety whether it was really a drilled well or a distant shallow well.  Now I can state with more confidence that it is most likely a drilled well.

 

 

Next time I will discuss well flow and well water purity tests.

The Small Defect

The Small Defect

 

Many realtors believe that the job of the Home Inspector is to find the large concern that will adversely impact the sale of the home.  That is in essence correct, but in order to do that the inspector must look at all the small defects and blemishes as signs and clues to finding the more substantial problems.  Realtors would probably prefer we not report all of those pesky small defects that detract from the overall desirability of the home.  What the realtor may not understand is the small defects that we take note of are sometimes the only signs of bigger concerns.

Even when the small blemish is only just that, a small blemish; by reporting it to the prospective buyer the inspector serves two purposes.  He alerts the possibly emotionally blinded buyer to the reality of the house, warts and all.  He has also provided the new home owner; should they end up buying the house, a ‘honey-do’ list of maintenance and repairs.

One of my students was told by a friend that he shouldn’t report all the small stuff because, “The realtors won’t use you if you ‘nit-pick’ the home apart.”  The realtor that would say that or not use a Home Inspector on those grounds is not a professional. 

A complete list of defects, small and large, is essential for the home buyer to make an informed decision.  If the buyer should decide to walk on the deal because the exterior outlets are not GFCI protected, it is his prerogative. It isn’t the job of the Home Inspector to keep information from him.  (Of course if the buyer walks without a major reason he may lose the deposit). We are not there to make sure the buyer sees the house in a certain way.  In fact it is just the opposite; it is the Home Inspector’s obligation to point out all visible defects, especially one such as this which is a safety concern. Always remember…. Our first and foremost responsibility is to our client the home buyer, and to the truth. 

Concern

Concern

 

Home Inspectors are not contracted to find all the correct and proper construction and components of a house.  They are hired to seek out the problems.  When these problems, aka defects, are found the home the inspector must include them in the home inspection report.  In my reporting system I report all defects found in the home in the “concern box”.  This box contains the explanation of the defect, who should be consulted, and a place for digital photos of the defect and its location. 

 

Each defect found generates a “concern” that has to be reported to your client.  The concern needs to be worded in a manner that clearly identifies the defect, explains specifically why it is a concern and recommends an appropriate course of action.  This reporting of the concern is the most important skill of a Home Inspector.

 

The reason I think it is the most important skill a Home Inspector needs is because it is at this point that we convey the appropriate amount of concern.  This skill or lack thereof is where many of the problems occur in regard to servicing our clients and; of concern to our business interests, the real estate agent.  

 

It is extremely important for a home inspector to speak and write about issues in a manner that clearly explains the defect and states the level of concern the client should have.  For example, if an inspector believes the level of concern regarding a defect is minor but writes up the defect in an ambiguous manner with inexact words and unclear explanations, the client might interpret this defect as a major issue.  Now a loose banister in the basement stairway is giving pause to a home buyer on whether or not to buy.

 

On the other hand if a serious defect with grave safety ramifications or vast monetary impact is misinterpreted a client may be at risk of purchasing a money pit.  Here a report about a possibly faulty septic system was interpreted as no big risk, only to become a financial disaster.

 

Home Inspectors must give a lot of thought to reports and how clearly the issues are explained, in writing as well as with proper demeanor while performing the inspection.

 

No matter how good a Home Inspector you are, no matter how thorough your report is, if you can’t communicate in an easy to understand manner with the proper tone of urgency, your report and your work will raise more questions than they answer, and may do a disservice to your client.

 

In regard to problems with real estate agents we must make every attempt to show them we are a desirable professional and a value to their business.  Of course, our main allegiance is always to our client, but it is often the realtor who gets the Home Inspector work. Making every attempt to please them is smart business and a reactionary inspector is seen as a liability. 

 

Realtors on both sides of the home sale hate when Home Inspectors “kill the deal”.  Their complaint may be valid if we over-dramatize a defect.  If the defect is a small matter like a loose handrail, but the inspector treats it like he found a ticking time bomb all parties involved are on edge and may become confrontational.  If the home inspector gets excited and emotional about a defect then the client likely will as well. If the client is appearing dissatisfied with the home at this late point in the deal, the real estate agents see all their hard work leading up to this point fly away; along with their dollars. This small defect now has become an emotional issue and the realtor may not be able to get everyone to calm down. 

 

Articulating the appropriate level of concern about any defect, both in person at the inspection and in the clarity of your report, is a difficult skill and should be near the top of the list for any Home Inspector’s things to be focused on.