What are home inspection reports? More importantly, what comes into a good one? Anyone with a home inspector’s license can offer you a report, but is it worth having? Is it worth the cost of home inspection? The purpose of this article is to help mark the key aspects of a great home inspection report.
A general home inspection should cover nearly every area of the home, from basement to roof. The pipes, toilets, sinks, bathtubs, and other aspects of the plumbing should be inspected. The circuit breakers, electrical outlets, light fixtures, and wiring should be inspected. Any air conditioners, water heaters, furnaces, and ventilation ducts should also be inspected.
The exterior of the house should be evaluated for the condition of driveways, sidewalks, and fences. The condition of all doors, windows, and walls should also be determined. Proper drainage of the property should be identified and inspected. At this point the roof should also be inspected from the outside, but keep in mind that most general home inspections do not include a roof certification unless you specifically request one. The roof is important enough to garner its own, specialized inspection that you should consider if the roof appears to be in bad shape.
If you have a garage it should be inspected, as well. The most important areas are the condition of the floor slab, the firewall, the ventilation, and the roof.
A general home inspection report should provide you with a list of areas of concern to the inspector. It may not be a problem now, but it could become one. Roofs that have a short life expectancy, any malfunctions in the air conditioning or heating systems, any defects in the foundation, any drainage issues; all these could become serious problems if they are not taken care of within a reasonable amount of time as you can read from this Blog.
Is a general inspection worth the home inspector cost? The short answer is yes, it is. A good report will give you a checklist of everything in your home that was inspected, followed by the condition of each item and any areas that you should get looked at. Should you require it the inspector service can likely provide you with specialized services such as roof inspections or a mold review. The service can also provide you with great home inspection tips so you can do a preliminary inspection before anyone even arrives.