Questions to Ask Your Home Inspector: What About a Pest and Dry Rot Inspection?

Long before Washington State started regulating the home inspection industry, the only "license" that inspectors had, if they had any, was a license to perform Wood Destroying Organism Inspections (or what a lot of people call "pest and dry rot" inspections) with the Washington State Department of Agriculture.  I would say that the majority of inspectors prior to home inspection regulations in this State held an SPI license.  As such, there was a sort of "expectation" that a home inspector would do a pest and dry rot inspection with a home inspection.  Pretty much everyone did, given how prevelant P&D issues are in the NW.  

What people don't realize, now, is that the Washington State home inspection regulations don't specifically require that the home inspector have a license as a SPI (Structural Pest Inspector).  In fact, Washington State Standards of Practice (also WAC) says the following: "The inspector is not required to...report the presence of potentially hazardous plants or animals including, but not limited to, wood destroying insects...".

Read again...

You could have a licensed home inspector.  They could do an inspection.  They could SEE Carpenter Ants.  And they COULD say nothing.  Your recourse?  None.  It isn't a requirement, and you only hired a "home inspector".

Again, buyers and real estate professionals have been sort of "trained", if you will, for the better part of the last 20 years to expect a home inspection to come with a pest and dry rot inspection, so once the Washington laws kicked in they figured that it would all be the same (save the regulation on the home inspection portion of the process).  

What does a consumer need to do, then?

First, you need to be sure that your home inspector is also a structural pest inspector.  This would mean that your licensed home inspector would also need a separate license with the Washington State Department of Agriculture.  

Second, you need to ask whether the home inspection includes a "pest and dry rot" inspection.  If it doesn't, how much more is the pest and dry rot inspection?  Personally, I include a pest and dry rot inspection for free with all of the full home inspections that I do.  

Why is This Important?

If you are getting a FHA, VA, USDA, FDA, OnPoint or Key Bank loan, to name only a few, it is likely that you are going to be told before hand that a pest and dry rot inspection/report is a requirement for your loan, OR it is going to end up being a requirement for your loan.  

This Leads to Reason Number Three

Let's say that you are getting one of those loans, and let's say that you want to hire a home inspector, but you are looking for the cheapest option possible.  You hire a home inspection on your 1992yb 1200sf home, and it is a deal: $270.  Book it!  Right?  Well, you get the inspection, all seems well.  A week or two or three later you are notified that you need a pest and dry rot inspection/report supplied to the lender/underwriter.  Well, shazame: you don't have one.  You never asked whether your inspector held two licenses.  You didn't ask whether the home inspection service includes this other service (pest and dry rot inspection).  You didn't think about it at all, or you (and possibly your realtor) assumed that you needed it.  

But you want that loan.

Now what are you going to have to do?  You are going to have to hire somebody (possibly sombody else) to come in at $150 to $195 to do a pest and dry rot inspection alone, and combined you have now paid well over $400 when you could have just got both things done for $325 to $375 on that same home, and it could have already been done.

Most of the client's that I work for at the present time are getting one of the loans I previously mentioned, and I know that the majoirity of the time the client ends up having to have a pest and dry rot inspection.

So, consumers: check to make sure that your home inspector also has a license as a structural pest inspector.  It could save you time and money! 

Justin Nickelsen, CMI

Nickelsen Home Inspections, LLC

"A Conduit for Educated Real Estate Transactions"

Serving Oregon and Washington From the Mountains to the Coast

Professional Licenses, Memberships and Certificates

• CMI - Board Certified Master Inspector
• WA - Licensed Home Inspector #415
• OR - CCB 172294, OCHI 1173
• Licensed Structural Pest Inspector 71352
• American Society of Home Inspectors - ASHI Certified Inspector 246145
• Member of the InterNational Association of Certified Home Inspectors
• Vice President of the Oregon Chapter of InterNACHI
• Member of the Washington State Pest Management Association
• Member of NWOCHI - The NW Oregon Certified Home Inspectors association
• Former Member of OAHI - The Oregon Association of Home Inspectors
• Founding Member of SWWAHI - The SW Washington Association of Home Inspectors
• Maintaining over 50 hours of continuing education per year.