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HOME & BUILDING INSPECTORS & INSPECTION METHODS

AGE of a BUILDING - how to determine
AIR CONDITIONING & HEAT PUMP SYSTEMS
ALUMINUM WIRING HAZARDS & REPAIRS
ANIMAL ENTRY POINTS in buildings
ANIMAL ODORS IN buildings

ARCHITECTURE & BUILDING COMPONENT ID

ASBESTOS FLOOR TILE IDENTIFICATION
ASBESTOS REMOVAL, Amateur, Incomplete
Asbestos Removal, Certification
ASBESTOS REMOVAL GUIDE, FLOORING
ASBESTOS REMOVAL, Wetting Guidelines
ASBESTOS RISK ASSESSMENT
ASHI American Society of Home Inspectors
ASHI Certification of Home Inspectors

ATTORNEYS and EXPERT WITNESSES
ATTIC LEAKS, CONDENSATION & ATTIC MOLD
ATTIC VENTILATION

BASEMENT CEILING VAPOR BARRIER
BASEMENT HEAT LOSS
BUILDING SAFETY HAZARDS GUIDE
BUILDING SETTLEMENT

CHIMNEY INSPECTION DIAGNOSIS REPAIR
CHIMNEY INSPECTION & REPAIR GUIDE
CHINESE DRYWALL HAZARDS

CRAWL SPACES
CRAWL SPACE SAFETY ADVICE

DECK & PORCH CONSTRUCTION

DECK COLLAPSE Case Study
DECK FINISHES COATINGS PRESERVATIVES
DECK FLASHING LEAKS, ROT Case Study

DIRECTORY of BUILDING INSPECTORS
Disasters: Building Inspection & Repair Safety
DRINKING WATER

ELECTRICAL INSPECTION, DIAGNOSIS, REPAIR
Electrical Inspection Safety
ENERGY SAVINGS in buildings
ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS - INSPECT, TEST, REMEDY

EXTERIORS of buildings
EXTERIOR WALL SIDING TRIM & FINISHES

Fiberglass hazards in buildings
FIBERGLASS INSULATION
FIBERGLASS HAZARDS
FIBERGLASS INSULATION MOLD

Fire Clearances, Single-Wall Metal Flues
FIREPLACES & HEARTHS

FLASHING MEMBRANES PEEL & STICK
FLASHING for METAL ROOFS
FLASHING ROOF WALL DETAILS
FLASHING ROOF-WALL SNAFU
FLASHING SIDING DETAILS
FLASHING WALL DETAILS
FLASHING WOOD ROOF DETAILS

FLOOD DAMAGE ASSESSMENT, SAFETY & CLEANUP
FOUNDATION CRACKS & DAMAGE GUIDE
FPE Stab-Lok HAZARDS & REPAIRS WEBSITE

GAS PIPING, VALVES, CONTROLS
GUTTERS & DOWNSPOUTS
GLUES ADHESIVES, EXTERIOR CONSTRUCTION

HEATING SYSTEMS

HOME & BUILDING INSPECTORS & INSPECTION METHODS
  BUILDING INSPECTORS DIRECTORY
  BUILDING DEFECTS LISTS

HOT WATER HEATERS
HOUSE PARTS, DEFINITIONS

INDOOR AIR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT GUIDE

INSULATION IDENTIFICATION GUIDE
INSULATION INSPECTION & IMPROVEMENT

INTERIORS of buildings

Journal of Light Construction - Index 1994

KIT HOMES, Aladdin, Sears, Wards, Others

LEED GREEN BUILDING CERTIFICATION
LEED Building Designation & IAQ
LIGHTNING PROTECTION SYSTEMS
LOG HOME GUIDE

MANUALS & PARTS GUIDES - HVAC
Mobile Home Inspection Guide

MOISTURE CONTROL in buildings
MOISTURE METER STUDY

MOLD in buildings
MOLD PREVENTION GUIDE
MOLD RELATED ILLNESS GUIDE
MOLD SAFETY WARNINGS
MOLD SPRAYS, SEALANTS, PAINTS
MOLD STANDARDS
MOLD TESTING SERVICES
MSDS Material Safety Data Sheets
MVOCs & MOLDY MUSTY ODORS

Nanomaterials Hazards
NOISE / SOUND DIAGNOSIS & CURE

ODORS & SMELLS DIAGNOSIS & CURE

OIL TANK PIPING & PIPING DEFECTS
OIL TANKS INSPECT LEAK TEST ABANDON REGS

PAINT ANALYSIS, DIAGNOSTIC USES
PAINT & STAIN GUIDE, EXTERIOR
PAINT FALURE, DIAGNOSIS, CURE, PREVENTION

PIPING IN buildings, Clogs Leaks Types

PLASTER & BEAVERBOARD & DRYWALL
PLASTER BULGES & PILLOWS
PLASTER LATH, METAL
PLASTER, LOOSE FALL HAZARDS
PLASTER TYPE IDENTIFICATION

PLUMBING SYSTEM INSPECT DIAGNOSE REPAIR
PUSHMATIC - BULLDOG PANELS

Reports: Checklists vs Narrative

ROOFING INSPECTION & REPAIR
ROOF VENTILATION SPECIFICATIONS

SAFE DECK CONSTRUCTION GUIDE
SAFETY HAZARDS & INSPECTIONS
Safety for Building Inspectors
SAFETY: Elderly & Veterans Home Safety
SAFETY FOR ELECTRICAL INSPECTORS
SAFETY HAZARDS GUIDE
Safety for Septic Inspectors

Sears Catalog kit homes - how to identify
Septic System Safety Hazards
SEPTIC SYSTEM INSPECT DIAGNOSE REPAIR

SIDING, Sheathing Identification - Photo Guide
SIDING, ALUMINUM
SIDING, ASBESTOS CEMENT SHINGLES
SIDING ASPHALT ROOF SHINGLES on WALLS
SIDING ASPHALT SHINGLE or SHEET
SIDING DAMAGE by SPLASHBACK
SIDING EIFS & STUCCO
SIDING, FIBER CEMENT
SIDING HARDBOARD
SIDING STEEL
SIDING VINYL
SIDING, WOOD PRODUCT CHOICES
SIDING, WOOD INSTALLATION
SIDING WOOD, FAILURES OVER FOAM BOARD
SIDING WOOD, FLASHING DETAILS
SIDING WOOD SHINGLE INSTALLATION

SINKHOLES, WARNING SIGNS
SLAB CRACK EVALUATION

SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEMS
Splits in Structural Wood Beams
SQUARE-D RECALLS

STAIN & BIODETERIORATION AGENT CATALOG
STAINS on buildings - QUICK GUIDE
STAIN DIAGNOSIS on BUILDING EXTERIORS
STAIN DIAGNOSIS on BUILDING INTERIORS
STAIN DIAGNOSIS on ROOFS
STAIN DIAGNOSIS on STONE
STAINS on INDOOR SURFACES: PHOTO GUIDE
STAIRS, RAILINGS, LANDINGS, RAMPS
STONE CLEANING METHODS
STRESS SKIN INSULATED PANELS

STRUCTURAL INSPECTIONS & DEFECTS

TANK TYPES: WATER, OIL, EXPANSION, ALL
THERMAL TRACKING Indicates Heat Loss

VAPOR BARRIERS & HOUSEWRAP
VAPOR CONDENSATION & BUILDING SHEATHING

VENTILATION in buildings
VISUAL PERCEPTION ERRORS

WATER ENTRY in buildings

WATER HEATERS

WATER ODORS, CAUSE CURE

WATER PRESSURE & FLOW MEASUREMENT

WATER PUMPS, TANKS, TESTS, WELLS, REPAIRS
WATER PUMPS & WELLS

WATER QUANTITY IMPROVEMENT

WATER SOFTENERS & CONDITIONERS

WATER TEST CHOICES & WATER TEST FEES
WATER TESTS, CONTAMINANTS, TREATMENT
WATER TESTING ADVICE

WATER TREATMENT EQUIPMENT CHOICES

WELLS CISTERNS & SPRINGS
WELL CLEARANCES
WELL CHLORINATION SHOCKING PROCEDURE

WIND ENERGY SYSTEMS
WIND TURBINES & LIGHTNING

WINDOWS & DOORS

Wood Burning Boilers, Furnaces Fireplaces Stoves
WOOD ROOF INSPECTION GUIDE

ZINSCO / SYLVANIA HAZARDS

More Information

Unidentified chemical drums discovered during a home inspection might indicate an environmental site contamination hazard.How Much Should You Pay for a Home Inspection or for Environmental Inspection and Testing?
InspectAPedia®  -    

  • How much should you pay in:
  • Environmental Testing Fees
  • Home Inspection Fees
  • It is a mistake to pay too much for a professional service
  • It may be a bigger mistake to pay to little for a professional service
  • Questions & answers about for-pay home and building inspections for buyers or owners

Home inspection costs, fees, and pro bono inspections: how much should you pay for a pre-purchase building inspection?

InspectAPedia offers impartial, unbiased advice without conflicts of interest. We will block advertisements which we discover or readers inform us are associated with bad business practices, false-advertising, or junk science. our contact info is at InspectAPedia.com/Contact.htm.

This brief article sums up Ruskin's views about getting one's money's worth when hiring someone to provide any service. There is the possible error of spending too much, which is easy to understand. The cost of spending too little is perhaps less obvious than one might first think.

Our fee schedule diagnostic building inspections, environmental inspection and testing, and construction forensic lab or mold test laboratory services is available elsewhere at this website. We offer pro-bono services for elderly or disabled individuals, people of limited means, and for religious and certain other non-profit institutions.

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John Ruskin had the following thoughts on prices and values and on how much to pay for something

"It is unwise to pay too much, but it is unwise to pay too little.

When you pay too much, you lose a little money; that is all.

When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything.

Because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot.

It cannot be done.

If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run and if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better."

Building & Building System Inspecting, Testing, & Consultant Referral Directories:

  • DIRECTORY OF ATTORNEYS & expert witnesses
  • DIRECTORY OF ELECTRICIANS - Aluminum Wiring and DIRECTORY OF ELECTRICIANS - FPE Zinsco
  • HOME INSPECTOR DIRECTORY
  • MOLD & ENVIRONMENTAL INSPECTORS and MOLD CLEANUP COMPANIES
  • DIRECTORY of OIL TANK TESTING COs and DIRECTORY of OIL TANK REMOVAL COs
  • SEPTIC CONSULTANTS / DESIGNERS and ALTERNATIVE SEPTIC PRODUCTS
  • OTHER CONSULTANTS, PRODUCTS, SERVICES

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about paying for a home inspection

Question: I can't afford to inspect the home we are about to buy. How about a free inspection?

I am looking to buy my first home in Queens, NY. I began looking in Poughkeepsie, NY where I grew up, but high gas prices do not bode well for a commuter so I am forced to find a house closer to where I work (Rikers Island).

I’ve finally found a home that I can afford in Cambria Heights, Queens – a 1935 brick cape, but it has a number of vertical and horizontal cracks in the brick, at the rear of the structure. I will need a 203K renovation loan for the other repairs but these cracks pose a serious concern as I have extremely limited funds for repairs. I have had people I know in the renovation business look at the house and they have recommended I obtain an engineer’s report – which I cannot afford. I need all my money for the down payment and closing.

I don’t know if you are planning to be in NYC anytime soon or if you do pro bono work, but I would really appreciate your looking at the house and giving me your opinion on the cause of the cracks and the possible remedies. - Thanks [Name withheld]

Reply: NEW HOME PURCHASE COST WARNING: can you really afford this house?

At BUILDING INSPECTORS DIRECTORY you might find an inspector who, recognizing your tight finances, will offer a reduced or pro-bono inspection, but your question makes one question the advisability of buying any home in the price range you cite. With all due respect, based even on your email above, in my opinion it is probable that you can not afford to buy the home that you are describing.

While many financial advisors agree that it can work well for a young family to "stretch" their finances when buying a first home, reasoning that incomes increase over time and house values often do too, those assumptions do not hold for everyone and certainly not in the case of "over-stretching" to buy a home.

A person simply cannot buy a home whose purchase costs alone place the buyer so close to the limit of their resources that they cannot afford a professional inspection.

Figure it this way: even a home in good condition is bound to require one or more costly repairs, changes, amendments in the first year of ownership by the new buyer.

And also consider that it is very very unlikely that the brick cracking you cite at this home is the only problem; it may not even be the most serious or most costly or most dangerous problem.

If you are so financially tight as to not even have a few hundred dollars in reserve to obtain an assessment of the condition of the property, you will certainly be unable to afford absolutely necessary repairs that come up. So what happens if in the first winter the boiler goes, or the roof leaks, or even a water heater fails? If the new owner cannot afford those repairs, the new purchase begins to deteriorate in condition and value, or the new owner has to go still deeper in debt just to try to hang on to the house - a losing battle.

These Three "Ds" Define the True Cost of Buying a Home

The true cost of a home is not just the purchase cost (house cost, lawyers fees, insurance fees, moving fees, etc.) but also those repairs that are absolutely needed to cover these three "D's":

  • Dangerous conditions: conditions, appliances, etc in the home that are dangerous for the occupants or others
  • Doesn't' work: things in the home that are absolutely needed for functional occupancy such as reliable heat, electricity, plumbing
  • Damage that is significant & ongoing: conditions that are causing rapid costly damage to the home, such that the building is deteriorating in condition and value at a rate serious enough to require immediate or near term (first year) repairs just to protect the initial investment

Identifying those 3 D's is the essential object of a home inspection. If a buyer cannot afford the inspection, how in god's name is s/he going to afford to pay for the D's that come up?

...

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Questions & answers about for-pay home and building inspections for buyers or owners.

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HOME INSPECTION

EXPERT DIRECTORY

  • [1] Basic Housing Inspection, US DHEW, S 352.75 U48, p.144, out of print, but is available in most state libraries; New York State version, ca 1955, source of our page top sketch of house parts. However even this illustration appears to have been copied from a still earlier source and we have seen this identical drawing with different numbers and often published without a consistent key that defines the numbered items.
  • Gregory Brown, P.E., Eastern Environmental Engineering Services, Califon NJ, Tel: 908-832-5098, Email: gabrown48@comcast.net. Mr. Brown, a licensed professional engineer in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, provides environmental / compliance, investigation, and remediation services and is the contributor of ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS, New Jersey - Update on New Jersey Environmental Regulations that impact real estate transactions.

Books & Articles on Building & Environmental Inspection, Testing, Diagnosis, & Repair

  • Our recommended books about building & mechanical systems design, inspection, problem diagnosis, and repair, and about indoor environment and IAQ testing, diagnosis, and cleanup are at the InspectAPedia Bookstore. Also see our Book Reviews - InspectAPedia.
  • Home Reference Book - Carson Dunlop The Home Reference Book - the Encyclopedia of Homes, Carson Dunlop & Associates, Toronto, Ontario, 2010, $69.00 U.S., is available from Carson Dunlop. The Home Reference Book is a bound volume of more than 450 illustrated pages that assist home inspectors and home owners in the inspection and detection of problems on buildings. The text is intended as a reference guide to help building owners operate and maintain their home effectively. InspectAPedia.com ® author/editor Daniel Friedman is a contributing author. Field inspection worksheets are included at the back of the volume.
  • ASHI Certification Links
  • Home Inspection Reports - a Critique narrative vs. checklist type home inspection reports
  • ASHI Standards of Practice - Jan 2000 and ASHI Standards History - links to older and alternative versions of Home Inspection Standards
  • ASHI Code of Ethics 1993, and ASHI Ethics History - links to older versions; Note: newer may be found at ASHI
  • ASHI in 1996 ASHI History - association description from 1996
  • American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) Official Website
  • Basement Moisture Control, U.S. Department of Energy
  • Building Pathology, Deterioration, Diagnostics, and Intervention, Samuel Y. Harris, P.E., AIA, Esq., ISBN 0-471-33172-4, John Wiley & Sons, 2001 [General building science-DF] ISBN-10: 0471331724 ISBN-13: 978-0471331728
  • Building Pathology: Principles and Practice, David Watt, Wiley-Blackwell; 2 edition (March 7, 2008) ISBN-10: 1405161035 ISBN-13: 978-1405161039
  • GO TO Carson Dunlop's Home Study Course Information - How to Become a Home Inspector: Carson Dunlop's nationally recognized Home Study Course, selected by ASHI the American Society of Home Inspectors and other professionals and associations. This website author is a contributor to this course.GO TO Carson Dunlop's Home Study Course Information - How to Become a Home Inspector: Carson Dunlop's nationally recognized Home Study Course, selected by ASHI the American Society of Home Inspectors and other professionals and associations. This website author is a contributor to this course.GO TO Carson Dunlop's Home Study Course Information - How to Become a Home Inspector: Carson Dunlop's nationally recognized Home Study Course, selected by ASHI the American Society of Home Inspectors and other professionals and associations. This website author is a contributor to this course.
    Building inspection education & report writing systems from Carson, Dunlop & Associates Ltd
  • Carson Dunlop's Home Study Course for Home Inspectors can be examined online at that company's website. More about home inspector education and other educational materials is organized at InspectAPedia.com at HOME INSPECTOR EDUCATION.
  • Carson Dunlop also offers information about the ASHI@HOME home inspection training program - an ASHI version of the Carson Dunlop Home Study Course. Contact the company at 800-268-7070.
  • Crawl Space Moisture Control, U.S. Department of Energy
  • Historic Preservation Technology: A Primer, Robert A. Young, Wiley (March 21, 2008) ISBN-10: 0471788368 ISBN-13: 978-0471788362
  • ...

 

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