What should Home Inspectors be looking for as far as the Electrical System goes? What items and accompanying advice should be on the list to give a good assesment of an older home? Looking for some good constructive advice please!

Bill

[This message has been edited by Bill Addiss (edited 06-29-2002).]

Lots of information here:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/elec_sfy.html
http://www.nesf.org/home/safety.pdf

[This message has been edited by Joe Tedesco (edited 06-29-2002).]

Bill:
Home inspections sounds good but who gets the job ? An Electrician ? A Plummer ? Just to name a few one has knowledge in one field but limited in the other.
In my area, we have Home Inspections/Inspectors(Not affiliated with the county building department) and I think they are state certified, also I dont think that should make any difference.
This year I did a revamp in a nearby township, there was a 60 amp meter socket and a 100 amp panel in the basement. The couple had just bought the home and had paid for a ' Home Inspection ', and everything had passed. How can a Home inspector pass the service, he didnt know, he saw the panel, it had breakers in it and as far as he was concerned it was ok. Of course there was no mention of the fact that the laundry sink was just underneath the service panel a water pipe ground held on to the water line by an automobile hose clamp,( all this was missed)
The first part of this is qualification and second and most important should autonomy. In my area the local Real Estate have a huge influence on these inspectors, and the number of calls they get are dependant on how generous they are in passing a certain house.
Recently I must admit they have been getting better and have a complete checklist that they turn over to the Realty Agent and they assume the responsibility after the inspection.
However; they still seem to miss quite a bit the house mentioned above the new owners had just put out 3500 dollars before I got there to straighten out their plumbing, and all this was to be included in the inspection. The sad part is they had to pay for this home inspection and believed they had gotten done everything that was required to ensure they didnt buy a ' lemon ' and still got stuck.
This has come a long way but still has a long way to go.

-Mark-

Mark, typical story.....happens here all the time.

The bigger question remains...
..... why do people/agents/insurers/underwriters/banks/powers-that-be put thier faith in straw men?

i am an electrical contractor just trying to improve. thanks for your help

Sparky
Heres another good one, I redid an old house in the city, a local bank was securing the loan for the work, and insisted they send their inspector over to check the work, this is after our city Electrical inspector had approved the work.
She showed up at 9 AM, right on time, went promptly to the basement looked for the electrical panel opened it up, the door, saw the breakers and said, " Yup thats ok it has breakers" and left. That was the extent of the banks inspection.
Heck I expected to be questioned about what I had done, how I had done it, on and on, I had this whole scenario imagined how the conversation would go, but that was it.
I couldnt believe it.

-Mark-

mims, we all are here....
and BTW....welcome!

Mark,
yeah, we've been getting more & more bank inspectors. This is due to the amount of defaults on loans, which in turn is due to lack of Occupany Permits or real inspectors, nothing to do with safety or craftmanship........

Most people fail to read the fine print on their inspection report. Most reports always have the clause "recommend inspection by a qualified electrician, plumber, hvac company etc etc. The inspection merely passes the responsibility on therfore limiting the inspectors liability. I recently was called to fix some problems on a residential panel. The inspector noted two minor problems but he never mentioned the single hot conductor landed on a 20 amp breaker going to the garage all by itself then picking up a convienent neutral in the garage to complete the circuit nor did he mention the fact that the panel was an FPE. Now I have to look like a crook telling them I can't put our name on it unless we fix everything.

Brian:
you see thats the problem they find some samll problem and reccomend they call and electrician and when we get to fix the little problem they noted, we notice the one that were overlooked.
What gets me tho is the fact that alot of these first time home buyers are getting taken, and they dont know any better. But they are told that they are better off getting one of these home inspection, " Just to be safe" and the bottom they are no better off than before, but a hundred bucks lighter in the wallet.
And as you noted, this puts us in a real bind and the customer gets one of two opinions, either we are trying to rip him off or the Home Inspector did, either way it doesnt look good.
-Mark-

Mims,

Sorry if I misinterpreted your question. I was thinking it was from someone that was involved as a Home Inspector and I thought it was a great opportunity for some constructive interaction.

Mark,

I don't think that there's any question that it would be best to hire a team of experts to go over a house, but that's just not going to happen. It is also likely that in some areas no certification is needed for this job either. Assuming this, my question is; what advice would you give to someone involved in Home Inspection that would like to do a good job at it?

Bill

Bill:
You see thats the problem, you have one man who is going to be wearing at least 4-hats,Electrician,plummer, Hvac, Carpenter, and should know the trades as well as we do.
Put another way when it comes to plumbing I can fix the bathroom tub fawcets, or make a Bookshelf(almost).
What to tell them ? Read and learn all you can in order to do a first rate job. I think there should be some type of oversight panel, under the auspices of the local building department, where if there is any doubt in the Home Inspectors mind at all he has someone to fall back on for help .
It seems to me that that is an awful lot of responsibility for just one person and on his say-so alone a family will base their judgement, just to find out that , oops he made a mistake.
He should be very broad based, know all the fields he is inspecting, that in itself is a tall order, for anybody.

-Mark-

Inspections of electrical systems in residential buildings seem quite rare here, but on the odd occasions that I've seen such a report, I have to agree with Brian's comment about listing very minor things while overlooking far more serious problems.

I'm afraid that to many people out-of-sight means out-of-mind, and some of the home inspections are very cursory. They might unscrew a couple of light switches and note that the grounding wire is bare (allowed in the past, hardly a big safety issue), but they don't crawl about in the attic and find the maze of spaghetti with broken junction boxes, neutrals crossed from other circuits, etc.