Home Inspection

Today we had the home/termite inspections done and were able to show the house to my dad (he was out of town this past week) and Em's aunts, including the one who helped us a ton with our mortgage.

I was a bit leary about the home inspection. Firstly, its the basis for our last possible chance to back out. We still haven't found any reason to want to, thank God, but its a big milestone. Secondly, you are putting a lot of faith and decision making power in the hands of a psuedo-stranger and his expertise. Also, until you actually meet the person, ask them questions and see how they are going to conduct the inspection, its hard to judge quality.

Our Realtor suggested an inspector she had worked with on numerous previous occasions from Central Building Inspection Service Co. here in town and I am happy to report that the house didn't have any problems and Pat did a great job.

Out inspector did a very thorough job (exterior, roof, garage, both floors, plumbing, electrical, drainage .....) and was happy to answer all of my questions with tons of details and suggestions. Plus, he was certified for the termite inspection so we were able to get both done in the same ~1.75 hour time span.

This evening, the inspector emailed me a copy of his formal report which detailed every aspect of the home, any problem areas he found and any suggestions he had for things to fix and/or watch our for. One really nice thing was that for the small problems he found, he included photos he took while he was there for reference which will make it a ton easier to remember where in the house the issue was and what exactly he was refering to.

The only minor issues he found were:

• garage door is powered via an extension cord run through the wall which should be changed to a separate circuit
• two joints where sinks tap into the cast-iron drainage stacks used the wrong kind of rubber connectors which should be changed
• the new basement bathroom sink drain isn't properly vented
• a number of the downstairs outlets aren't grounded but have 3-prong plugs
• one outlet near a sink should be changed to a ground-fault-interrupt equipped outlet
• window in garage has a crack
• no problems with the roof but its "older" and will probably need some work in 5+ years
  

Some unexpected (by me) bonuses we found were

• for most of the walls in the finished basement, they installed insulation between the drywall and the concrete which they didn't have to do
• attic construction was done with larger beams spaced closer together than current code dictates (not cost effective today) which is stronger
• hot water heater is ~2 years old
• drains work well with good water pressure (he turns on all of the faucets while working through other rooms and nothing backed up or drained too slowly)
  

Nothing big. We will talk to our Realtor this week to discuss what repairs we will request and/or what credits we will want to have these fixed ourselves. I was very happy to find out that the major systems in the house were all functioning well (plumbing, heating, drainage, water heater, furnace, etc) and that the walls/foundation/attic didn't have any problems. There were no signs of any type of insect or other animal problems and all cracks were superficial (we have plaster and masonry walls so there were quite a few).

One more big step done. :-)