When Should I Question My Home Inspection Report?

In Montreal's older neighbourhoods, a large part of Montreal Island, homes built at or before the turn of the century as well as homes built up until the 1950's get makeovers. Neighbourhoods such as Westmount, NDG, Montreal West, Mont-Royal, Outremont, Le Plateau, Mile-End, etc.

Renovations often include updating the electrical system and wiring. James blog post below provides one area he identified for further inspection. The problem for home buyers is that the inspection delays requested do not often allow for a situation such as bringing in an electrician or worse, as in Jame's example, a further delay should the expert not answer the questions to your satisfaction. In Quebec, sellers should be encouraged by their broker to complete a sellers' declaration form to inform buyers in detail as to the state and history of maintenance and repairs to the home.

In Quebec, when completing an inspection delay request as part of your Promise to purchase, it is important to understand the delays offered in the preprinted standard clause on Annex B (clause B2.4). Buyers are provided with the "X" number of days agreed to and then a grace period of 4 days to accept or reject the purchase based on the home inspection report received from the inspector.

This delay ALSO includes the time needed to bring in any experts for further inspection.

For this reason it is prudent to get an inspector before you enter a Promise to purchase and to have an understanding with them that when you do sign an offer that they will be available to do the inspection within a couple of days following your accepted offer AND provide their report within 24 hours following. Even better, I make sure my buyers have a verbal summary from the inspector on any suspected areas of concern the SAME DAY of the inspection.

This allows us to plan any further delays that might be needed.

The consequence to not planning these delays is learning that your inspection period has ended and you have bought the house without investigating it properly!

Thanks for this post James!

 

Via James Quarello - Connecticut Home Inspector (JRV Home Inspection Services, LLC):

Standard breaker and and tandem breaker

Home inspectors by definition are generalists, not experts. You even might call us expert generalist. Or perhaps not. The thing with being a generalist is that one must know a little about a lot of things. It is almost a full time job in itself keeping up with all the bits and pieces of knowledge to be a well informed generalist.

Some of the ways to keeps up with all the information in this profession and to stay current is by attending seminars, going to home inspector meetings or reading up on various topics. Reading is always a good source of information, especially when doing an inspection. Reading data tags and labels is a great source of information. In fact I believe in most instances in can be said to be indisputable information.

At least I thought so until recently.

Sub panel with too many tandem breakers

I inspected a larger home that had undergone a complete remodel about 5 years previous when the current owner had purchased the house. Part of the renovation required electrical work. The house has two electric panels. Both are full.

When checking the second panel, a sub panel, I noted a plethora of tandem breakers. Tandem breakers are two circuit breakers that occupy the space of a single breaker. They are sometimes called space savers. Manufactures of electric service panels designate specific areas in the panel where tandem breakers can be installed. Some panels do not allow for any tandems, many allow for them in the bottom four positions and others run the gamut from the entire panel to some where in between.

The manufactures when designating these positions also states the maximum amount of “poles”. Poles are simply circuits or a part of a circuit. A single breaker is a single pole, a tandem breaker is two poles and large breaker such as is used for a dryer is also two poles. This information is printed on the panel label. In the case of the sub panel I was inspecting, the manufactures label showed the maximum amount of poles allowed to be 24. Tandem breakers were designated only for the bottom four positions. This panel had 34 poles with tandem breakers in almost every position.

Panel breaker diagram. Did I misread something?

The issue was written into my report and presented to the seller for correction. The seller hired a licensed electrician to address the electrical issues found during the home inspection, one of which was the over loaded sub panel.

The electrician found nothing wrong with the tandem breakers or the sub panel. His “report” stated, “It is in good working condition and poses no safety hazard”.

I wonder if he did any reading.

 

James Quarello
Connecticut Home Inspector
Former SNEC-ASHI President
NRSB #8SS0022
JRV Home Inspection Services, LLC

ASHI Certified Inspector

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4 Comments on When Should I Question My Home Inspection Report?

MAR
20
2012
Outside Blog

Scary stuff- we need our home inspectors to be rock solid, yet here, anyone can call themselves a home inspector. Asking and questioning things that don't seem right may be do-able for those with construction knowlegde, yet so many have no background there at all.
7:42am • #1
198,963 Points 22 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

I disagree with Margaret... Home Inspectors here in Florida are licensed by the state, which requires recordable classroom instruction and practical experience. And, you must present a copy of your license(s) to your client along with your contract for services prior to the inspection. Anyone requiring a home inspection should indeed do their homework to insure they are hiring a certified, licensed, experienced home inspector. Nobody can legally pose as a home inspector here in Florida.

James, I wonder how thorough the electrician was in your case, probably not as thorough as you were when the manufacturer clearly stated on the label the maximum load rating for that panel.

The standard time for having an inspection done here is 10 days. I encourage all my clients to have it done as early as possible in the process. I always do a verbal at the end of every physical inspection to alert my client of what they can expect in my reports. I am not aware of any timeframe for having repairs done before closing or having an expert to look at things such as the one in James's above. I would think that if a possible problem such as this came up the time would be given for further evaluation, it could benefit both the seller and the buyer.
8:47am • #2
174,888 Points 2 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor

I agree Margearet and Fred. Yes, inspectors must be licensed; no, they don't know everything.

In this case, the issue is with the electrician that performed the further inspection. James found their assessment not in line with the manufacturer's specs on the box. In Quebec, the wasted time to find another electrician is an issue given teh manner in which contracts state timelines.

Thanks for stopping by and offering a comment!
11:21am • #3
198,963 Points 22 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Is it an issue if it is a safety concern? Seems the problem is bigger and more important than the possibility of losing or postponing the sale... I guess it's all in how you look at it. Common sense must prevail. Seems to me that there needs to be an addendum to the contract written to cover such possible findings.
7:49pm • #4


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