House Maintenance Advice
“A home inspection is a high-liability, in-depth, multi-disciplined technical analysis of the home conducted under adverse circumstances in front of a demanding audience, requiring the generation of an incredibly detailed written report prepared in an unrealistically short time frame for an inconceivably low fee. Does anyone understand how tough our lives are?” … Alan Carson (past president of ASHI - American Society of Home Inspectors).
My name is Darek; I’m an Illinois home inspector and have been in the business for over ten years. The statement above is the pure essence of the home inspectors’ profession, and there really isn’t much you can add to it …
However, my website isn’t exactly about me performing home inspections or complaining about my profession.
It’s about showing you how to look at your house from a different perspective so you can recognize the most common problems before they even become problems. It’s pretty much about you performing a home inspection.
You’re not qualified? For most parts, you don’t have to be - performing a home inspection isn’t that hard at all, as long as you know what / where to look for and how to do it.
Also, you don’t have to perform a complete home inspection. Even if you concentrate on just 3 critical items –
- the roof / attic problems
- the crawlspace and the basement issues
- the “recently remodeled” statement you’re proudly putting on the listing sheet (sometimes it’d be better to not even mention it)
you’ll be dramatically increasing your chances for a successful real estate transaction and piece of mind, even if a home inspector pays you a visit.
In our heavily occupied lives, house maintenance usually plays the background role, and until the home inspection report reveals it or something becomes extremely annoying, we’ll do nothing about it. When it comes to selling a house, we usually switch to a high gear and do a quick patch-up of neglected or poorly maintained items instead of properly repairing them.
When buying a home, would it be encouraging to hear from your home inspector that the property you’re about to purchase has been poorly maintained, has mold in the attic, a flooded crawlspace, and an electrical circuit breaker panel installed in the brand new bathroom?
I don’t think so. Unfortunately, this blade cuts both ways – the buyer of your home is also looking for a well maintained property, not something that requires significant investment before he can even move in.
Have you been in your attic or crawlspace lately?
So, from a home inspector (that would be me) to a home owner (that would be you, of course) comes this free website, packed with the information that most often ends up on the home inspection report pages. You’ll find information distilled from thousands of home inspection reports, with hundreds of self explanatory pictures that will help you to correct or detect a problem.
Look around, come back often, share with others, and ask if you can’t find an answer.
Yours truly,
A Chicagoland Home Inspector
