ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Home Inspector Checklist

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.