A residential home inspection can be ordered either by the person selling the home or the person buying the home. Home sellers should have a home inspection completed so they will have time to have things fixed before selling the property and are not used against the seller in price negotiation. Buyers, on the other hand, are often required by lenders to have an inspection completed, but should order one regardless in order to know the exact condition of the property before spending any money.

It is recommended that you be at the actual home inspection so you will know what exactly the home inspection report is talking about. If you’re on site when we complete the inspection, we’ll go over the report with you so you understand every detail. If you are not able to attend, you’ll receive a detailed report the same day stating all problems that were found.

We apply the ASTM Standards of Practice & Code of Ethics to our commercial inspections, looking at the overall structural of the building, checking for code violations, and assessing the overall environment of the property. Some of the major things that will be looked at with a commercial building inspection will include:

• Exterior / Appurtenances
• High Voltage and 3-Phase Electrical Systems
• Power Distribution
• Gas, Plumbing, and Ventilation Systems
• Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems
• Interior Components
• Insulation and Ventilation
• Roofing Structures and Protective Coverings
• Parking Structures
• Foundation
• Railings, Steps, and Elevators
• Fire Sprinkler Systems
• Doors and Windows
• Emergency and Safety Systems

While it’s required to have a building code inspector look at it, there are many things left out, making it extremely important to get a construction or phase inspection. Consider that each phase of the construction affects all the phases that follow it, so anything missed can cause a slow motion domino effect that you won’t notice until a couple of years into the house. By this time, your family’s safety could be compromised, your home value driven down, and it’s often too late to correct or reverse the problem without dramatic costs.

You’re spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to build your dream home, spending a few hundred worth it to make sure it doesn’t turn into a nightmare house!

Not all insurance companies are going to require a separate insurance inspection to be completed on the property. What they require varies greatly according to their policies and procedures. Not only are their requirements different, but insurance inspections themselves are not done in the same way.

The insurance company is not necessarily concerned with a lot of the minor details that are usually looked at with a regular home or commercial building inspection. We will work with the insurance company to meet their individual needs, but the most common requests include:

• Age and Condition Of Roof
• Foundation Problems
• Wet Finished Basements
• Mold and Moisture
• Galvanized Steel Pipes
• Water Meters and Water Flow
• Furnaces, Boiler Systems
• HVAC Systems
• Electrical Hazards
• Fuse Boxes and Electrical Wiring
• Termites and Wood Destroying Organisms (WDO)

Depending on the size of your home, the inspection can typically take 30 to 90 minutes to complete. In that time, we are going to visually inspect the interior and exterior of your home. We’re going to inspect all scuttle holes and all attic access points as well as look for other types of wood destroying organisms (WDO), such as ants and carpenter bees. Our inspectors are not only looking for the insects that are destroying your home, but they are also trained in assessing the damage that has been caused.

If WDO’s are found, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need run from the property. If we do find termites or other wood-destroying organisms, we’ll will let you know the severity of the infestation and the recommend course of action. While termites are bad, they can often be dealt with pretty easily and efficiently if you catch them early.

After the termite inspection is completed, the form will list any places where any sights of termites have been found.

We will examine all reinforcements on the outside of the property as well as the exterior shell of the property. Besides the main exterior shell of the property, to ensure your property can withstand a hurricane or high wind storm, we’ll also inspect the roof, roof decks, tie-downs, and the protection systems for doors and windows.

If your property has a poor structure and/or roof, it is going to make your property vulnerable to wind damage. So when inspection is completed, we will detail all parts of the property that are going to be vulnerable so you can have them addressed before the next storm (which, in the summer, seems like every day at 4pm in the bay area!).