Many home inspectors not only check the critical components and systems of a home, but also try to give an overview of the status of the household appliances. The information below gives some insight into how this evaluation is done.

Home inspection standards seldom specify that household appliances must be inspected by the professional home inspector. There are a number of reasons for this. For example, many times the appliances go with the seller so they will not be in the house after closing. Other times, there are no appliances in the home because it is brand new or, in an older home, they were worn out and were disposed of. A problem with trying to evaluate used appliances is the difficulty in doing so accurately. Even an appliance repair professional will be reluctant to try to predict the longevity or remaining life of a used household appliance.

The inspector does not want to make wild predictions about the unknown so, when appliance inspections are done at all, there are a few guidelines. These procedures may vary from one inspector to another, and from one appliance to another, but here are some basics. With a refrigerator or freezer, an inspector tries to determine if it is cooling and whether or not it is broken or rusted inside. Another common problem, that should be checked, is the condition of the door gaskets that are often found to be torn.

Ranges, gas and electric, should be checked for the basics: Do the burners, the oven and the broiler all heat? With a gas range there might be more safety checks but complicated functions, like the working of the oven timer or the calibration of the thermostat are beyond the scope of the inspection.

When the dishwasher is run, the inspector makes sure that it operates and that no water leaks show up around it on the floor or under the sink. A dishwasher, depending on the jurisdiction or circumstances, might require an air-gap. This device is a safeguard that keeps contaminated water from entering into the potable water system. In a related matter, the food disposal is usually run and the primary concern there is that it does not leak, that it is not heavily rusted and that it does not sound like it is flying apart.

As described above, kitchen appliances are commonly viewed by the inspector but laundry appliances, when they are present at all, may or may not be operated depending on a number of factors that the inspector takes into account at the time.

Conducive conditions are circumstances that unnecessarily attract wood destroying organisms to the home. Perhaps the most common such conducive condition, that takes place right in front of the homeowner's eyes, is vegetation or plants growing against the wood structure of the home.

Circumstances that can lead to problems with wood destroying organisms (rot, ants, wood boring beetles, termites) are known as conducive conditions. Probably the most frequently seen conducive condition, to a home inspector, is vegetation growing over the roof or against the siding of the home. In Washington State, a state licensed inspector seeing vegetation against the home is mandated to describe it as a condition conducive to attracting wood destroying organisms. This specific conducive condition can attract not only insects but it can lead to rot, also known as wood decay fungi.  Insects, such as carpenter ants, are prone to using vines as pathways onto or into the home. The other concern is that the vines shelter the home so moisture collects and the siding or roof does not dry, or it takes a very long time to dry. A moist environment will contribute to rot since rot fungi thrives in damp conditions.

If you are planning to sell your home, or just want to keep it in good condition, the best advice is to trim vines so there is about a foot of space between the siding and the vegetation. If you really do not want to do that, because you love the look at your house, then at least try to trim the plants so a few inches of clearance exists between vegetation and the home. Even a gap of three or four inches will keep insects from establishing a freeway to the home. And, if you can establish a few inches clearance, for drying, that is certainly better than no clearance at all. In a related matter, always keep soil off the siding and other structure at the home. Basic guidelines call for eight inches, to a foot, of clearance from soil up to the siding or other structure.

A home inspector looks at the structure and many systems and components in the home. While this information is all helpful to the buyer, the fact remains that a few key locations at the home tend to be those areas where the most dangerous safety issues are found.

If a home inspector adheres to any of the published national standards, the home inspection will include many locations and systems: structure, roof, crawl space or basement areas, plumbing, heating, electrical, fireplaces, etc. Even though the inspector looks at all of these components, there are certain locations or systems that are, in fact, more critical than others in trying to identify the possible safety concerns.

Faulty, ancient or overloaded wiring often causes house fires. An inspector should look for evidence of this condition. Another significant danger at the home involves decks. With high decks, and to a lesser degree low decks, a person falling through rotted decking can receive a life threatening injury. There are a number of other common deck safety issues: missing lag bolts at high decks, poor or missing guardrails or handrails and unsafe steps. The hot water heater, the fireplace and the furnace are other systems that need to be carefully evaluated by the inspector. An incorrectly plumbed water heater might explode. Furnaces and fireplaces, that are not maintained professionally, can be fire hazards or disperse carbon monoxide into the home.

The components and systems described above tend to be among the most critical as far as household safety. That does not, however, mean that other areas of the home should be ignored. Historically, some of the most expensive repairs - often with dollar amounts going well beyond the cost of repairing those systems listed above - involve re-roofing, replacing old plumbing, or resolving serious structural problems in the crawl space, such as repairing damage from termites, carpenter ants or rot. A quality home inspection should pay for itself. In the long run the inspection report, prepared by a trained professional, will provide you with not only an overview of the work that needs to be addressed right away but also a glimpse into the future and the projects that will be required or are recommended at a later date.

Does the home you plan to buy have sufficient sources of heat? Maybe it does and maybe it does not. Heating problems are common in older homes and, surprisingly enough, in new homes as well. A few of the most common problems are described below.

When buying a home, either an older one -- or surprisingly enough even a new one -- something you cannot take for granted is that it will have sufficient sources of heat. This might surprise you, especially with new construction, but the explanation is below.

 In older houses, where heating problems are more common, there might be a single space heater installed in one room yet the device is expected to heat the entire home. The standard definition of sufficient heat states that every livable room (not including bathrooms, closets, halls) must have a source of heat. Due to the common use of space heaters, or missing or damaged supply ducts, this condition of insufficient heat is often found in the older home.

With brand new homes, very often, heat ducts are part of the plan and in place but they do not operate. You might, logically, ask why. Almost always, the causes of non-functioning heat supply registers in the new home involve heat ducts that someone forgot to connect into the system; ducts that have not been adequately fastened and came loose under the house; or someone has been working near flex ducts and crushed them so it is impossible for heat to pass through them.

In light of this common problem of insufficient heat, when buying new homes or older homes, it makes sense to check the heating system. This test can be done by turning on the heat source, such as the forced-air furnace, and then feeling for heat at the heat supply registers. An easier way to do it is to point a simple laser thermometer at the heat supply registers while the furnace is running. If the home has electric heat, such as baseboard heaters, the buyer is advised to test these units prior to assuming that the home is sufficiently heated.

Home inspectors cite wood to earth contact as a condition that will, eventually, lead to decay of the wood. Sometimes, the wood that is in contact with the soil is pressure treated lumber that is designed for that purpose. This article gives advice on what could be considered appropriate uses for pressure treated lumber.
 
Wood to earth contact is one of the most frequently cited concerns in a home inspection report. Often, clients ask about wood to earth contact and how it applies to pressure treated lumber. In the world of construction, pressure treated lumber is advertised as having a long life (some say 40 plus years) even with direct earth contact. The manufacturers soak the lumber in chemicals that penetrate into the wood from the outside surface. The most vulnerable area to future rot is where the builder cuts the wood -- such as to length and then that end is dropped in a hole for use as a fence post. In theory, if an end is cut and buried, a topical wood treatment should be applied at the cut. In practice, this lumber does last a very long time. There have been instances of fence posts, that were installed 20 years before, being dug up and they looked as good as they did the day they were buried. On the other hand, depending on soil conditions, sometimes the wood will not meet the advertised expectations for longevity.

 Pressure treated lumber, and what a home inspector should say about it when it touches soil, is an issue a home inspector wrestles with. Fact: The wood is manufactured for ground contact, so having it touch the earth is not necessarily a defect. However, pressure treated wood in contact with the soil will last much longer if all soil contact is eliminated. Putting pressure treated lumber on a concrete pier will make it last longer.
A logical means of evaluating the situation, that makes sense for the home inspector, follows: If pressure treated lumber is being used in a crucial role, and it is in contact with soil, then the inspector recommends removal of the soil. For example, if a structural post under the house is buried the risk for extensive damage, the result of rot, cannot be ignored. Another example: Outside columns that support high decks should be kept well away from soil. High decks can come down if the columns rot.

Now, if an inspector finds a couple pressure treated 4x4's, for support of a handrail, sunk into the earth at the steps from a low deck, that is a relatively minor concern. Usually the inspector will probe the lumber at the ground level and, if it is sound, not think or say much about it.  No grading is applicable, since the posts are sunk into the ground, in part to make the rail steady. Pressure treated lumber is commonly used in simple outdoor applications and, down the road, any repair should be simple to do and the area easy to access. Should there be a problem at some point, a workman who is affordable can perform the repair and no structural damage is likely to have occurred. That makes this an appropriate use of pressure treated lumber.

When wood destroying organisms are found during a home inspection, what can and should be done about it? Does the remedy entail wood replacement, or merely hiring someone to apply a pest control treatment? Some of the questions you might have about this process are answered below.

If wood destroying organisms are found in the crawl space of the home you are purchasing, what can be done about it?  Many insect pests, given time and free reign, can literally destroy the substructure of a home. Some of the worst in this regard include termites, wood boring beetles and carpenter ants. Home inspectors have to deal with this problem on a couple fronts. One, is the existing damage so extensive that the wood is already weak? Two, how can the pest be eradicated?

As for the first issue, that comes down to a judgment call that has to be made by the inspector or a contractor after visually checking and sounding the lumber. Sometimes the lumber is just plain shot. A frequent problem, or area of contention, is that most sellers merely want to hire a pest control operator to apply a spray, even when the wood is too far gone to ever offer any structural integrity. In those cases, a contractor needs to replace wood that is soft and weak.

As for the second issue, there is good news regarding chemical treatment. A common control used today is sodium borate. You might have heard of it. It is low toxicity and similar to 20 Mule Team Borax, the hand soap that was the show sponsor back when Ronald Reagan was the television host of Death Valley Days. This product has been found to be effective in controlling rot and wood destroying insect pests, including the anobiid beetle, which works deep inside the wood. The chemical is applied by a licensed pest control applicator and one treatment should be enough to last forever, unless the area floods at some point and that could wash away the treatment. Eliminating conducive conditions, such as leaks, bad caulking, poor ventilation or downspouts that empty next to the crawl space, will also help keep pests at bay.

Sodium borate is very popular today, not only because it is effective but, also, because it is safe. After years of using DDT, chlordane and some of the other highly toxic solutions, it is a welcome addition to the pest control industry. While the product is considered to be relatively new, as far as popularity here in the USA, it has been used in New Zealand since 1953.

A home inspection, because it is a visual inspection by a trained professional, has a certain number of built in limitations. An inspector cannot see into walls. However, when the utilities at a home have been shutoff, such as water, gas and electricity, that imposes limitations on the inspection and that severely impedes the overall quality of the inspection.

A home inspection is, generally speaking, a visual inspection of a home. An inspector is not able to look under or between floors or inside walls. While this is a standard limitation to an inspection, there are other sometimes other limitations that are imposed by circumstances. These circumstances might lead to a less than ideal situation. For example, it is not uncommon to find homes where the utilities are shutoff. This is frequently the situation at homes that are vacant. The seller might have had the home on the market for some time and decided to save money by disconnecting the utilities or, in cold weather, the decision could have been made to winterize the plumbing and have the main water turned off. The likely scenario, and how it impacts the buyer, is that that person wants to buy the home and the inspection is scheduled to visit prior to the systems being turned back on. This is problematic and it is best if the realtors involved evaluate this situation and try to get utilities turned back on prior to the inspection.  Needless to say if, when the inspector arrives, there is no electricity, no fuel (gas, propane, heating oil) and or no water, the inspection is very limited. Sometimes a few utilities are hooked up, but other key utilities are not. Whenever any combination of circumstances, such as described here, exist the inspection is very limited in scope.

When the water is off, an inspector cannot look for active leaks at sinks, tubs, toilets and other fixtures. Furthermore, the inspector cannot test the positioning of hot and cold water taps (hot water to the left), nor can the water pressure or the temperature of the hot water tank be evaluated. When electricity is off, outlets, lights and most things electrical (heaters, furnaces, electric water heaters, disposals, ranges, refrigerators) cannot be evaluated. The inspector can look in the main electric panel, but that is about all. It is possible that the inspector might be able to determine if there are any GFCI outlets or see knob and tube or old two-prong systems. When gas is off furnaces, and often water heaters, go without being performance tested, other than a few visual checks. When these elements of the inspection are excluded, it decreases the quality of the inspection and the value to the client.

 If you work in real estate, and do not know this, home inspectors only operate normal controls. The inspector will not come in and start turning on the main water valve, the main breaker, the gas from the propane tank, etc. If these systems are inoperable when the inspector arrives, they will remain that way and not be evaluated. The reason: The inspector does not want to be responsible if turning on the main water leads to a ruptured pipe in the house, or if flipping the main breaker leads to a fire or electrical short. When main controls are turned off, it sometimes means there is a more serious problem in the home and an inspector cannot take the risk of finding out.

On the surface, it sounds simple enough. But, in fact, the simple re-inspection of a previously inspected home or property is very high liability to the working home inspector. A synopsis of the complexities of the re-inspection process, and why it worries home inspectors, is provided below.

Frequently a home inspector is asked to re-inspect repairs at a house where that inspector had previously performed an inspection. This is typically done at a fraction of the cost of the original inspection. On the surface, this process sounds simple enough but, in fact, home inspectors are often very uncomfortable doing re-inspections. While this might seem strange to the casual observer, the reasons for this reluctance on the part of the inspector are described below.

 An inspector, and this is the primary role of the position, is expected to go in to a home and find visible defects -- some of which might be subtle. The inspector should recommend that the repair work be done, and that the system be evaluated for upgrades, by a qualified party: a licensed electrician, a licensed plumber, a licensed contractor, a licensed roofer, a licensed HVAC professional, etc. So far, it seems simple enough but then reality sets in. The seller or a friend, or someone free, cheap or casual labor, will end up doing all the work at a fraction of the cost one would pay to a qualified professional. While that might be satisfactory for some smaller maintenance or cleanup jobs, the big problem comes in when this same party works on complicated repairs, projects or systems. For example, let us assume that the inspector initially found melting insulation on solid-strand aluminum wiring in the main electric panel. The inspector later comes back to re-inspect and finds that somebody has snipped off the charred ends and put the same wires back in the same panel on the same terminals. Even if some better than average amateur repair was done at the melted wires, chances are that the aluminum wires are also corroded, melted and unsafe at the terminals at the other end where they connect to the wall outlet. The non-electrician, who did the work, had no clue that the problem in the panel was merely the tip of the iceberg. He or she missed the big picture which is equally, or even more, dangerous. Similar situations, where defects can be concealed by shoddy work, occur in plumbing, roofing, HVAC and other parts of the home.

Home inspectors are generalists, who know a fair amount about many different systems. The inspector is not, usually, an expert on any one area.  Inspectors work hard to detect problems but then will, to make sure the repair is done correctly, refer work to specialists:  licensed plumbers, electricians, contractors or HVAC technicians. That way the component or system called out as faulty, and anything more complicated in that system, will be detected and repaired by the specialist and that leads to an extra margin of safety for the consumer.

Trying to discern if work is done correctly is actually harder than finding the initial problem, especially if anyone involved in the repair is sneaky. That is the reason an inspector wants to see specialized work done by qualified and licensed parties. That policy, of recommending professionals, protects the inspector to some degree and is a kind of insurance policy. If it ends up that a licensed electrician, plumber or contractor did a lousy job, in a concealed area, that company is responsible for the problem that remains. On the other hand, if some fly- by-night worker with no skill or license only half does the work, then that can get an inspector into hot water. Take for instance, a worker who replaces visible galvanized steel supply pipe but replaces none of the rusted pipe that runs inside the walls. Six months later, as water begins to gush through holes in the pipes, the buyer is mad at the inspector for not guessing that the handyman didn't replace the rusted pipes that were hidden inside the walls. If a professional plumber had been in that equation, and did such poor work, the buyer would be able to complain to the plumber. But since the repair was done by an unlicensed party, who might have even vanished into thin air, the easiest person to get mad at is the inspector who is still around, insured but certainly could not see inside those walls.

Obviously, in a re-inspect, a wise inspector uses defining and exclusionary language. Also, a number of inspectors just flat will NEVER sign off on any electrical, plumbing, roofing or structural work unless invoices prove that all of the work was done by a qualified and licensed party. That policy applies regardless of how good the work might look on the surface. This kind of strict, and non-flexible policy, is always frustrating to the sellers or the realtors involved. Regardless, agree or disagree with this kind of policy, now you know why home inspectors feel that they have extremely high liability during re-inspections.

Decks are so commonplace that people tend to take them for granted. In fact, decks that are not well maintained can pose a serious safety risk to life and limb.

People tend to take deck safety for granted. Sellers, buyers, realtors, and even home inspectors who should know better, might walk right up on an unsafe deck. Decks are simple and so common that we seldom even think about them. In other words, they are taken for granted. While that is the reality, often decks, even the low ones, can be treacherous. They are prone to concealed rot on beams, joists, columns and decking boards. This can lead to soft spots, springiness or even collapse. I know realtors who have fallen through, or off, decayed or dangerous decks. I know one home inspector who fell through a deck and hurt his ribs. One realtor was left hanging from a high deck, with his arms over the joists, after the decking gave way. In another instance a realtor sustained serious neck injuries after falling from a deck. And, in yet another case, a lady realtor fell through rotten decking boards, on a low deck, and put a welt on her leg. She was lame for several weeks.

Warning: Before you tread on decks, even low ones, use caution and give them a once over with your eye prior to walking on them. A fresh coat of paint or stain might, instead of being a positive statement about deck maintenance, be a negative factor. Often people, who understand nothing about construction, know that the deck has problems and they simply paint over the rot. This makes the deck even more dangerous because it conceals the most obvious visual defects.

Wood burning devices, such as fireplaces and stoves, are among the most dangerous systems found in the home. Poor installation, or lack of maintenance, can lead to a serious fire hazard.

Wood burning stoves and fireplaces are found in many homes, both older and new construction. These systems, because poor maintenance or improper installation is so common, can be the cause of a fire. Due to the vulnerability of these systems, the professional home inspector must carefully evaluate them.

More often than not, unless a chimney sweep or another professional has recently performed professional service, the home inspector finds a multitude of correctable problems that are significant safety issues. These concerns, while the list below is not intended to be inclusive, would typically involve heavy deposits of creosote in the stove, fireplace or flue (the purpose of the chimney is to vent exhaust gases not to collect combustible materials); broken or cracked firebricks; loose, torn or generally bad gaskets at doors; poorly planned and unsafe installations such as insufficient clearances to combustibles; or the very common malady of the short hearth. A hearth protects the floor and should extend out at least 18 inches past the opening of the wood-burning device. That non-combustible hearth on the floor protects carpets and flooring materials from being assaulted by burning embers.

As a result of the safety issues involved with wood burning devices and chimneys, the National Fire Protection Association recommends that a Level 2 chimney inspection should be made part of every sale or transfer of property. A Level 2 inspection is an in-depth inspection by a specially trained and licensed chimney professional. Such an inspection goes beyond the visual inspection provided by a home inspector and can catch subtle, but potentially serious, safety hazards that exist at the fireplace, stove, flue and associated components.