Over the years I have had the opportunity to be at many home inspections other than ones that I was performing and they were both excellent learning opportunities and amusing...
Some home inspectors don't quite understand how to ... "communicate".
One time I was at an inspection and this other inspection company was there peforming the home inspection. This inspection was a "double team"--two inspectors. For the first fourty five minutes, one of the inspectors was on the outside of the house just banging on the siding. I don't know what the heck he was doing--looking for decay, I suppose. The house was only a year old... During this time they kept "announcing" to the world what they were going to do next... "WE ARE GOING IN THE CRAWL SPACE NOW, WE ARE GOING ON THE ROOF NOW, WE ARE INSPECTING THE FURNACE NOW..." On and on. The customer looked embarrassed and the realtor looked t'd off.
There were a couple of occasions when they found something: "HEY, FRED... YOU BETTER GET OVER YEAR, THIS IS TERRIBLE." No, I am not making this up. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and seeing. These "inspectors" took over 4 hours to inspect a house that was a year old, and I left feeling pretty good about myself. :)
Inspectors are often known for lacking social skills. This comes in the way that they deliver the report at the end of the inspection, what they say and do during the inspection, and the words they use in the inspection report, to name just a few places.
There are two extremes to this lack of social brilliance:
1. The SAY NOTHING APPROACH--the STIFF INSPECTOR
These inspectors are so freaked out about being sued that they STRICTLY "observe and report"... to the point that it only confuses people and makes them feel as if they paid to have some robot inspect their house.
Examples of the STIFF inspector: "Wood decay on siding" (well, where, do you know why or have any ideas?), "replace roof" (that is a big deal... can you tell me more perhaps?). I am sure that some Realtors have run into these.
2. The SAY TOO MUCH APPROACH--the LOUD-MOUTH INSPECTOR
The Loud-Mouth Inspector is like "Fred" above--can't keep his mouth shut. Everything is a "big deal", you get the picture.
The fact is that there is a wide gulf between these two extremes that a good home inspector will want to be in. Is it really a false dichotomy to find a happy medium between giving your client some actual "information" and being able to give all information in the same, clear and honest tone of voice? My goodness.
Inspection Report
One of the items that I don't like about my home inspection report software is that it has two distinctions for "problem areas": MARGINAL and DEFECTIVE.
I would prefer to NOT use either of them. What is "marginal" and what is "defective" is really up to the client, not the inspector.
As I always say at a home inspection: "A closet door that won't slide because it is off the tracks is a big deal to a 75 year old widow, but not to most of us".
The point is that there is a level of subjectivity and relativity to how items are graded on a home inspection.
As such, I would much prefer to use only ONE distinction that would come out in a summary: FINDINGS.
I am there, partially, to "find" things. I think that the client and his or her Realtor can seperate the "FINDINGS" themselves and determine what THEY think are MARGINAL and DEFECTIVE, if anything is at all.
Perhaps this is a window into my "inspector soul"--I don't like using the term "defective".
Maybe I am soft... I don't think so.
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