Posts Tagged ‘Inspection’

Home Inspection Tips

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Let’s face it. Your basement is a hole in the ground, and you don’t want water getting into that hole. Grading and drainage are issues every home owner faces. Home inspectors find grading and drainage problems to be quite common.

If grading collects and holds water near a foundation wall it can cause basement flooding. That can lead to mold growth as soon as 48 hours after flooding, something you definitely don’t want. Of course, any amount of flooding can damage those valuable items you’ve stored in your basement, and you don’t want that either.

If you’ve lived in an area for quite a while, you maybe familiar enough to detect certain weather patterns, such as a wet spring that could cause flooding. You may already know you have to be on guard concerning water getting into your basement. However, aside from immediate flooding, water leakage over a long period of time will rot and damage wood framing structures and also cause damage to the foundation. That’s something to be aware of, too.

The grade is like a roof on a house. A grade that pitches or angles towards a home can direct water right to your home. If the ground is frozen in winter, heavy rain can cause flooding next to your foundation wall. Of course, heavy rain any time of year can cause flooding. The problem is that the water will leak into any cracks it finds. Thus, you get water in your basement and damage to your foundation.

If you’re looking to buy a home, you’ll want to ask the owner about any flooding in the past. Was this a wet year? What about wet years within the past ten years? Such years are bound to happen. You don’t want to be surprised by unanticipated flooding in the basement. Any possible evidence of past flooding is important to learn about before you buy the home. You want to be able to wisely make an informed decision on purchase or negotiation with the seller.

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Things to Negotiate After Home Inspection

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

In the vast and complex world of real estate, there are important processes and procedures that every seller and home buyer must never do without. Home inspection is one of the most vital components that must be taken with utmost priority. Before plunging further in your pursuits of home purchase, this is a primary step that you must ensure first and foremost.

Why have your home inspected?
For instance, home inspection is conducted and can freely be opted by both sellers and buyers. Home owners who want their properties sold in a very short period of time must get their house inspected first. There are certain areas and systems that may have defects and malfunctions. To determine what to repair and fix before putting your property in the market is very vital. It will definitely give you the chance to boost the quality and worth of your property, given the different renovations you have made based on the inspection report.

For home buyers, home inspection is necessary in order to have a sound and fair investment. You need to know what the exact and accurate condition of the house is before you make finalizations with your transaction. This will also save you a lot of time, money and worries, considering that you have already known defects if there are any. The important information you get from the inspection report will greatly help in the way you conduct the succeeding negotiation.

What must be emphasized in your negotiation?
There are three things to consider when you are going to negotiate after the completion of the inspection done in your house.

1. The price of your property is the primary concern when negotiating with the seller after finishing the inspection. You can request for the modification of the asking price of the property based on the report that the inspector provided. If the property has many defects and malfunctions, then you can negotiate with the home seller a price that you deem fair and worth your money. Home buyers ought to assess the value of the property carefully and try to compare it with other properties in nearby areas.

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Home Inspection Tip

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

Weeds in your garden are a problem because they’re where you don’t want them. Likewise, in your home, water around your foundation and in your basement is a problem because that water is where you don’t want it to be, and it’s a far worse problem than weeds.

If you could find a major cause of water getting into your foundation, you’d want to solve the problem. That would mean you could head off more serious problems. Your house would be more livable for you and for the person who you want to sell it to. Plus, you’d get a better report from your home inspector when it comes time to sell.

Thankfully, there is something you can do, and it’s not difficult. Get control of the gutters and downspouts.

Gutter downspouts are a major cause of water virtually pouring into your home’s basement. That’s because the water goes right alongside your foundation and into your basement. All downspouts should pour that water at least five feet away from your home’s foundation. If that’s not happening, you need to get downspout extensions.

Granted, the downspout isn’t the only source of water coming into your foundation and basement, but it’s one of the worst problems. Simply getting that pouring water out away from your foundation will help tremendously. Try to take care of this problem yourself before you call a waterproofing contractor. Installing downspout extensions could really make the difference for you.

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Inspection Safety

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

When a home inspector looks for fire hazards or electrical problems, he’ll probably come up with things you hadn’t thought of. You might be surprised how many things you can take care of yourself, without having to call in a professional contractor.

One such example is clothes dryer vent maintenance. Most clothes dryer vent ducts are short in length and can be cleaned and maintained by any home owner. On the other hand, there are some long ducts that run twenty feet or more in crawl spaces or in non-floored attics which should be taken care of by a professional with special duct cleaning equipment.

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Home Inspection For Roofing

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Don’t you hate it when it rains inside the house? It brings a new meaning to the saying when it rains it pours. It’s not a good situation. Of course this normally doesn’t happen but if it happens perhaps it’s time to check the state of your house with a thorough home inspection. And if you are buying a house you certainly don’t want to move into a house and find out later that there are issues with the roof.

For the unfortunate, they can probably relate to the situation where pails and buckets have to be set beside leaky ceilings and even dangerously wet sockets and receptacles. This can happen whether your place is old or new. An improperly installed roof can have problems quickly. And in older residences, leaves fill up the gutters and everything becomes clogged to the extent that no one is spared from the onslaught of the downpour. These issues however, can be assessed at the onset and possibly even prevented through a relatively simple home inspection.

This is actually a visual examination of the premises. The inspection is relatively thorough in that the inspector scours through the house from top to bottom. In many areas, you have the choice of hiring between select individuals and agencies which specialize in the task or have it listed as part of their services offered. As much as possible you should utilize the best choices by hiring accredited professionals for the task. A home inspection is a service that should be handled by a qualified and trained professional.

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Home Inspection

Monday, August 17th, 2009

When choosing a new residence you are mainly looking at the look and layout of the property. Before you finalize your purchase is the time when you might benefit from the expertise and service that a home inspection offers you. This is a procedure whereby trained professionals conduct a visual examination of your home and take note of all possible issues and fixtures that might strike them as danger prone. In the process they may uncover several other reasons why things might be in disorder. These people are trained and have had years of experience therefore it’s reasonable to expect that they are relatively good at detecting potential trouble.

You might find it implausible if you try to keep your house in tip top shape with regular cleaning and care-taking but there are simply things beyond the capability of general cleanings to handle. For example, light bulbs go out, tiles crack from use, and wood either rots or gets overused. As a dweller, you might not take notice to these developments in your house because you are generally accustomed as to how the house appears. You don’t really notice small changes because you easily disregard these details due to being accustomed to the house. That is not the case with a home inspection.

When you employ professionals, you employ the services of experts who won’t be affected by the biases, comforts, and years of being accustomed to the residence. These people will look at your house through an objective and qualified perspective. Therefore their assessment will more than account for the discrepancies or possible design flaws of the structure. More importantly, the home inspectors are skilled in reviewing all aspects of the building including the electrical, and mechanical systems and areas of the house.

One concern you might have in particular is a continually flooded basement. Sometimes, it can’t be helped but during storms and heavy rains the basement has water in it and you don’t have a clue as to why. Or maybe there are incidents with the plumbing where water always seems to drain slowly or it runs rusty, which isn’t good for any inhabitant of the residence. Fortunately these areas are covered in the normal review during a home inspection. Thus a viable assessment could be made in just a little time by checking out the trouble spots.

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