How to Find a Good Home Inspector
Home inspectors are hired for the purpose of catching flaws and problems in a house which an ordinary person normally wouldn’t be able to spot. Hiring a home inspector is highly recommended – you get to know about the condition of the home, in addition to figuring out how to go about the process of home maintenance, and this is especially important if you are an inexperienced first-time buyer. In addition to telling you about the workings of the home you are considering, and outlining any changes that need to be made (furnace tune-up intervals, thermostat use and humidistat functions, plumbing clean-outs, etc), home inspectors will also answer any questions you might have, and address your concerns.
Some inspectors manage to do justice to their job, while others over-criticise, in order to appear more efficient than they already are. If you are an aspiring home buyer, hiring the right home inspector is bound to be a top concern – there are certain qualities you can look for in a home inspector, to determine whether s/he really knows his/her stuff.
Typically, a good home inspector should have a sound knowledge of building code, construction, and common problems. This knowledge should be both general, and area specific. An inspector who knows his stuff will be able to assess a house and its problems effectively, and guide potential home buyers in the best possible way. This does not mean the inspector will point out a million trivial problems in a house that appears to be fine, or refer to a few ambiguous problems in a vague, off-hand manner – a good inspector will tell you exactly what is wrong, why it is wrong, how it can be fixed, and how much the repairs will cost.
In addition to knowledge, it is also helpful if a home inspector has a likeable personality, which enables him/her to easily connect with potential home buyers. When aspiring home buyers feel at ease around a home inspector, and feel that the inspector understands their position, they can get the most out of the experience, and will not hesitate to ask for all the information they require.
This leads to another quality that an ideal home inspector must possess – tact. In this regard, it is crucial for a home inspector to ask a couple of pertinent questions in order to determine how sound a knowledge of construction the aspiring home buyer has. If the knowledge is weak, the inspector will need to outline the problems of the house in question in a simple, easy to understand style, using layman’s terms. However, if the buyer is familiar with the procedures involved in construction, the instructor will need to focus more on making sure all the problems are pointed out, and less on how to outline and explain those problems.
