Understanding what is, and isn’t included in your home inspection is important for you the buyer. That is why it is important to make sure you get the best inspector in your area for your home. As one example, someone I know recently used this home inspection syracuse ny list to help them decide on who to hire when they were buying a new family home. It gave them the confidence to make the decision and close on the property.
Regardless of where you are (be you looking for a syracuse home inspector or elsewhere, as mentioned before), and who you go with, your home inspection company of choice is going to inspect:
Site
Structure
Attic
Roof
Laundry
Plumbing
Heating/Cooling
Electrical
Interior
Kitchen
Bathrooms
Pool/Spa
That seems like the whole house… and all the main items… but there are items that the Home Inspector is not required to inspect or include on the home inspection report.
Irrigation Systems
Low Voltage
Telephone Systems
Remote Controls
Mold
Soil Conditions
Fountains
Water Softners
Fire Sprinklers
Chinese Drywall
Smoke Detectors
Anything That Can’t be Seen
So lets start at the top of this list… and discover what and why for these items.
- Irrigations systems – for a home inspector to check the entire system would take soooo much time, each drip line at each plant, and each of the timers and systems are not standardized.
- Good news, most home inspectors if they visually see a problem with plants dying, sinking spots in the ground or around a sprinkler head will let you know about it on their report
- Low Voltage – this is low voltage lighting, or other low voltage systems
- Telephone Systems – most are privately owned
- Good News – add insurance on your phone services and they phone company will replace any faulty lines for you
- Remote Controls – have you tried to figure out all those remote controls?
- Mold – The home inspector will let you know if they find mold, they just won’t identify the type of mold, that requires an expert!
- Soil Conditions – This again requires an expert. If soil condition is important to you, you will need to hire a specialist.
- Fountains – I know, lots of homes have them, but they are not required to be inspected by the home inspector. So many are not filled with water and are not connected to power, sometime because it doesn’t work, sometimes because the seller has drained it as they are not residing in the home and using it.
- Water Softeners – We have really hard water in Arizona, and many many homes have water softeners. Some are owned and others are rental systems. Kind of like fountains, they are not all ‘turned on’ and ready for use.
- Fire Sprinklers – Duh, you really don’t want those tested
- they will let you know if the fire sprinkler heads have been recalled
- Chinese Drywall – this stuff is nasty – it can release toxic gases – however it has been drywalled and mudded in so the inspector can’t “see” if the drywall is Chinese made or US made.
- if the home inspector sees exposed drywall and identifies it as Chinese made they will disclose it on your inspection report
- Smoke Detectors – have you taken the beeping battery out of yours? Lots of homes smoke detectors have had the battery removed, to test them, the home inspector would need to install batteries in nearly every unit.
- you can replace a smoke detector for as little as $10 give or take
- Anything That Can’t Be Seen – so that wall unit of bookshelves could be blocking a hole in the drywall, a dead electrical plug or stains in the carpet… and the home inspector is not going to be moving boxes or furnishings to access what it is blocking.