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Home Inspection Checklist: What To Expect

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Are you feeling anxious about your home inspection because you are unsure of what to expect? Many new homeowners, and even veteran homeowners, find the home inspection process stressful. We believe we can alleviate this stress by telling you what you can expect through a home inspection checklist. This way, you can feel confident as you walk through your home with your inspector.

Plan to be there

One of the most important steps you need to take is to attend your home inspection. Plan to be there for at least 3 hours. A good home inspector will walk you through all of their findings and detail the report.

Interior of the Home

Your home inspector will start with the interior of the home. Any and all spaces, including attic and crawl spaces, will be inspected. You won’t be expected to go into those small spaces yourself unless you want to.

Exterior of the Home

After inspecting the interior of the home, the home inspector will inspect all areas outside the home. This will include gutters, the roof, the driveway, and the backyard. Again, you are not expected to go into all areas, such as the roof, unless you really want to.

The inspection report

Finally, at the end of the process, you will receive your inspection report. This report will detail everything the home inspector already detailed as you walked through the house with them. This report is great to refer back to, will be required by your bank or home insurance, and is good to keep on file.

If you hire Divinity Inspection Service we will keep your property inspection report on file in our online system for up to one year. Now that you know what to expect in your home inspection checklist, go ahead and schedule your appointment now.

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What Are Home Inspection Deal Breakers?

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A home inspection comes at the end of your home buying process. This position has a tendency to be stressful to home buyers. In fact, fear of home inspection deal breakers is a common misconception. In this blog, we will address some potential home issues that could make or break a deal. Keep in mind, at the end of any home buying process, the decision to complete the purchase is completely yours. No matter what home issues are uncovered during a home inspection any issue can be repaired or resolved.

New Roof

A new roof can be one of the most expensive repairs. However, if a home needs a new roof many sellers will include the cost of the new roof into the home price. This means the seller will decrease the price of the home to accommodate for the cost of the new roof. During a home inspection, your home inspector will walk on the roof and look for damage or any indication of need for repair.

Plumbing and Electrical

One of the most common home issues is with the plumbing or electrical. A leak in the wall or pipes, faulty wiring, or both can be an expensive repair. Worse, if you have to replace anything. The good news is most of these home repairs aren’t huge and can be taken care of fairly quickly. Home inspectors use infrared lights to detect water leaks behind a wall so you can feel confident that we will find any leaks even if it is not obvious to the naked eye.

Sinkholes or Foundation Issues

In Florida sinkholes are becoming a nuisance. For this reason foundation inspections are one of the most important inspections you need to have. Inspecting the foundation should be included with any home inspection. Any good home inspector will go into the crawl space if it is available and properly inspect the foundation. Any issues or concerns will be included in the detailed report.

You can schedule your home inspection directly on our website. We will walk you through everything you need to know about your potential new home and answer all of your questions. Schedule your home inspection now or give us a call!

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Why do I need a home inspection?

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Often people have a misconception about what a home inspection is all about or what it is intended to provide. Divinity Inspection would like to clear up some of your concerns. First of all, no inspection should be considered to be a guarantee of finding all defects. In the real world this just cannot be accomplished. Inspectors do not have the option of probing into finished surfaces or concealed areas.

That being said, what we look for are indicators of some condition that may raise a question or concern of a past or current situation. Some conditions may only present themselves only occasionally such as flickering lights or waste line back ups. It’s every inspector’s hope that such situations crop up during the home inspection, but we’re not always that lucky.

A property inspection is not intended as a code compliance evaluation. Building codes by the way are minimum standards and can vary widely by state, country and even village. There are also new versions of each code that are generated from time to time. Keeping up with all them is next to impossible. So we look for conditions that meet national standards as well as what we call “best practice.” Our inspection is based upon the conditions as they exist at the time of the inspection. We cannot warrant that conditions will not change after our evaluation.

In our inspections we are primarily concerned with issues that have to do with safety and/or significant repair cost. Much of what we find we consider to be normal wear & tear items that would be corrected after settlement. These are not conditions that would necessarily warrant a request of the seller to repair. Such issues are secondary to us, ones that we do not give as much attention to when we go through a home. For example, the need for some minor grouting or caulking in a shower stall would be minor. On the other hand, loose tile and indication of water damage in the wall would major and be of more concern; and be a reasonable request of the seller to correct.

We have no authority to enforce standards but rather to merely point out conditions as they exist and make recommendations. We will recommend repair to minor grouting in the shower stall just as we would for a leaking roof. Our goal is to help our client distinguish between the significant needs of the home and those that are more commonplace.