HOME INSPECTIONS
There is a bunch to be said about home inspections and conversely, there is not much to say. Let's take the easy route first... The purpose of a home inspection is to see if there is anything major wrong with a property before you buy it. It's not meant to be a negotiating tool so that you can nickel and dime the seller. The inspection is your way of knowing if there are "deal breakers" like faulty wiring or a failed septic system, not a loose knob on a kitchen cabinet. So the general rule with inspection results: Be reasonable. You want to buy it and they want to sell it. So approach the inspection as a tool for bringing you to common ground.
That being said, here's the juicy part... There is no license or certification of any kind for home inspectors in the State of Rhode Island. Yes, you read that correctly. Oh the State is working on it, sure. But at the time of this writing there was no funding for the program. So basically, anyone with a flashlight and a clipboard can call himself a Home Inspector. As long as he knows a little more than you do about construction and maintenance, or even if he is just really good with the B.S., a guy can get you to pay him a tidy sum to walk around and point out meaningless defects, often while completely missing glaring problems.
Area Realtors have known me and my reputation for strict honesty for many years and often call me in when some self titled "inspector" tells the buyer there are termites or carpenter ants in a home and the result is in question. Often these inspectors are just plain WRONG. In one case, what the inspector wrote up as a termite problem was a pile of sawdust left by an electrician who had drilled a hole above! (And FYI: Termites don't even leave sawdust. That's carpenter ants!)
If you want to know whether a house is worth buying. Or if you want to be sure there are no back breaking bills built into the walls, you need a person with a broad background in all of the building trades. Well, I'm your guy! I also offer Handyman Services for those minor things that might be found. Registered professional contractors should always be called for bigger or more complicated work.
To learn more about home inspection dos and don'ts, read my
