Zoom Call 2.27.24 Tom Hurley Inspection Overview
The Zoom call this week was presented by Tom Hurley, an Inspector from Sheriden, WY. His business is Double H Inspections, LLC and he's been working at it for about 4 years. In what he describes as the wild, wild west regarding consistency with inspections and real estate, he has endeavored to bring professionalism and consistency to his craft and keep the drama out.
His approach has been to make the process and his reports as simple as possible for his clients to understand yet give full details of what he sees.
He has taken several inspection form guides to make one that he feels does the job without sending off alarms. His preferred manner to perform his inspections is to have access to the property alone and to get through it before he receives the buyers and their agent. He feels this reduces the drama and should he find something, he has a chance to look at it alone and not have an anxious buyer looking over his shoulders.
With the buyer, he will then do his systematic walk and explain what he sees and what would be a periodic maintenance area to watch and also what may or may not need immediate attention.
He works to the reality of the home and its age and is mindful of not detailing hat may or may not be building code issues, especially if they were not in effect when the house was built.
He may offer some advice on updating for safety but that is also with the idea that the house was not required to have certain things when constructed.
For areas that may be questionable, he advises buyers to call in specific specialists which takes the issues out of his purview.
He noted that countrywide, only 30 states regulate inspections and even where he lives, there are no requirements or guidelines to being an inspector.
As he stated, his purpose is to be there to look at functionality and safety within the home and provide that in the report to the client.
He offers the basic mechanical inspection as well as structural. He does Radon, sewer inspections but doesn't do termite inspections. He also does water samples but doesn't do full well inspections.
He also does new construction inspections and has even been given the exclusive work for a new home builder that wants him to look at all their projects before they turn over to a new owner.
As Radon is so prevalent in his area, he gave his thoughts on how he does it and the cost of the monitors used and the requirements to have them re-calibrated annually.
There was also some conversation with regards to the finding of lead in a well system. He does not offer any service to remediate that but when found strongly encourages a specialist be brought in to discuss the issue and the options available.
A question was asked regarding inground oil tanks and whether they are common out there. He did offer that they are not very common but has also not been asked to inspect any.
His inspections are typically 2-3 hours long and as noted he prefers to get through the bulk of it alone, and then have the buyer and their agents in for the final review.
He will give a report to the buyer and their agent and at that point it falls to the agent to do what they need regarding any repairs.
He has had sellers there during the inspection and it has been unconformable as they can get argumentative.
He tries not to be an alarmist with his reports and avid making any notations in red unless it is important.
He has a system of 3 levels of attention to his work.
1 FYI, maintenance and recommended upgrades
2 Defects
3 Major Defects with everything delineated.
He responds to clients after they have had a chance to review the report to answer any questions they may have raised after leaving the home.
His work is paid upfront as that is when he is providing the service and if they don't buy the house that is not his issue.
There was some conversation on electrical panels and specifically those made by Federal Pacific that seem to have an inordinate number of issues with breakers not functioning properly.
The presentation was very informative and the manner in which he made it demonstrated an inspector that would be in high demand and extremely professional.
Zoom Call 2.27.24 Tom Hurley Inspection Overview
Comments(15)