Which Career Backgrounds Make the Best Home Inspectors?

A home inspectors job is to go in and evaluate the safety of a house and the good working order of its many components, either before it’s purchased or while it’s being built.

Home inspectors do a lot.

They are responsible for checking, essentially, every square inch of the home they are inspecting to ensure there are no noticeable or hidden current or potential problems for the homeowners to run into later down the road.

This general yet vast nature of the job means that home inspectors need to be experienced and have an extensive knowledge in not just one, but many fields of work/study.

To get a better idea of which career backgrounds make the best home inspectors, let’s take a more detailed look into some of the specifics that home owners are expected to deal with.

What, Exactly, Do Home Inspectors Look For?

As mentioned before, home inspectors essentially go over every square inch of a house.

This means they will evaluate both interior and exterior components to ensure proper working condition.

On the Outside

On the exterior of a house, an inspector will inspect components such as: roofing, flashing, the chimneys, any gutters and downspouts, exterior wall surfaces, windows and doors, the foundation and the grading surrounding it, etc.

On the Inside

For the interior components, inspectors will take a look at: electrical, heating, air conditioning, water heater vent pipes, ventilation systems, plumbing, insulation, furnace, flooring, ceilings and interior walls, kitchen, windows and doors, and fireplaces.

So… My Current Job Isn’t Enough to Make Me A Home Inspector?

As you can see – we weren’t joking when we said home inspectors deal with a lot. So much so, that having an educational background or career experience in any one individual related field isn’t enough.

Maybe you are a plumber, a roofer, or an electrician – heck maybe you are even a general contractor whose been overseeing jobs involving a variety of these things. That’s great, but you’ve still got a long way to go before you are knowledgeable to provide accurate and quality inspections of every aspect of a house.

So A Career Background in a Related Field Isn’t Beneficial?

It may be beneficial, yes – but it isn’t everything.

Being an electrician won’t help you when inspecting a homes plumbing; having decades of experience in construction won’t help you when inspecting a homes electrical; etc.

A home inspector is, basically, a jack-of-all trades when it comes to building components.

Having experience in one or more related fields can be beneficial – but becoming a home inspector will take a lot more training and practical experience than you may have anticipated.

It Takes More Than That

Just because you are experienced in one of the careers highlighted above, that does not mean you are ready to be a home inspector.

Being a home inspector is an intellectually demanding job that requires extensive knowledge, experience, and training, where individuals are expected to perform at extremely high standards.

With any job, becoming a home inspector requires constant learning, hands on experience, time, hard work, and dedication – regardless of what career background you are coming from.