Home Inspector Recommendations

C

CTNative

New member
I saw a recommendation for Bilt-Rite on another post here, but if anyone has anyone else or anything else to add, that would be great.

Of course, I am a bit more concerned now that I have become a Holmes Inspection junkie on TV. We are looking at some older properties, from the 70's and 80's. One in particular is built on a bit of a hill and it has a cracked pad for one of the second floor deck supports.

Looks like the hill moved a bit and took part of the pad with it. It's homes like these that I can imagine how many things are wrong that aren't as easy to see and a really good home inspector is either going to save me a fortune or strap me with decades of repairs and bills.
 
Off topic:

I think Holmes can probably look at ANY house and find 10s of thousands of dollars in repairs to be done.

Some of the stuff he does must cost quite a bit of money... I've seen him rip out entire basements and the floor above... repour concrete, reinstall plumbing and redo electrical which isn't cheap.
 
I have not used this inspector but I spoke with him in length and plan on using once we enter escrow.  I spoke to a few people and he seemed really knowledgeable and a straight shooter: www.Seay-Inspections.com
 
irvinehomeowner said:
Off topic:

I think Holmes can probably look at ANY house and find 10s of thousands of dollars in repairs to be done.

Some of the stuff he does must cost quite a bit of money... I've seen him rip out entire basements and the floor above... repour concrete, reinstall plumbing and redo electrical which isn't cheap.
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There are very few episodes where they tell how much it would have cost for a homeowner to do all of the repairs that Holmes did, but there was one where I would not have been surprised if they made no money on that episode.

It was a duplex I think, and it was turn-key, very modern, pergranisteel and all, looked perfect.

The entire basement was gutted, the bathroom upstairs, one whole length of the foundation wall had to be redone because earth was coming into the house behind the wall as the foundation was gone, re-poured concrete floor, problems with the roof, they had to have professional asbestos and mold removal as well. It was a joke. Oh, and I think there was termite damage and they had to fix part of the neighbors foundation too in order to complete the fix.

For that episode, the cost of the repairs was about 1/3 of the price they paid for the house if I remember right.
 
cameray said:
I highly recommend Merit Home Inspectors...great job at fair price. 
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I would not hire this person again. I used him for my home inspection. At the time of the inspection, it seemed thorough enough. It wasn't until it was too late that we realized how much he missed. I would not have purchased the home had he reported the true extent of repairs it needed. That's all I want to get into for now. I have thought for months over what would be a fair thing to say. I feel it's good for the site members to have more than just a rosy picture presented so they can make a more informed decision. Good luck.
 
Did you talk to the bilt-rite guy before you hired merit?  I've only heard great things (second hand only) about them.
 
A newer built home could be disasterous due to unskilled labor and assembly line construction. Success of a home is when the same person was involved in all aspects of construction instead of a 200 people tag team to built a home. The margin of human errors occurring 200 times is very high when one trade built over an unfinished work of a previous trade or even knowingly just to complete his share of work just to get paid. The problem was buried and the poor homeowner 20 years later discover the problem and other areas affected by it.

So doesn't the builder have a construction management guy who oversee all facets of construction? The answer is yes but he is back at corporate wearing a tie and guarding his territory.

If he does in fact visit a job site he rarely walk through every home to check rather he just walk through a couple like a the inspector checking a few packages out of thousands arriving to the custom seaport.
 
freedomcm said:
Did you talk to the bilt-rite guy before you hired merit?  I've only heard great things (second hand only) about them.
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No, I hadn't seen this thread until after I bought my house. So, I didn't realize Bilt-Rite existed. I just went with the referral I was given.
 
did you hire another home inspection person to find all the issues you are having?  what were some of the big things merit missed?  not asking to judge merit but asking as it might be something other inspectors miss as well
 
irvinehomeshopper said:
A newer built home could be disasterous due to unskilled labor and assembly line construction. Success of a home is when the same person was involved in all aspects of construction instead of a 200 people tag team to built a home. The margin of human errors occurring 200 times is very high when one trade built over an unfinished work of a previous trade or even knowingly just to complete his share of work just to get paid. The problem was buried and the poor homeowner 20 years later discover the problem and other areas affected by it.

So doesn't the builder have a construction management guy who oversee all facets of construction? The answer is yes but he is back at corporate wearing a tie and guarding his territory.

If he does in fact visit a job site he rarely walk through every home to check rather he just walk through a couple like a the inspector checking a few packages out of thousands arriving to the custom seaport.
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We toured the Santa Barbara townhomes when they were being built (we first number 1 on the priority list - can that go on the lies thread?) and the quality of the construction was horrible. Things were not level, nails were sticking out and I even saw a few cracks in the 2x4s being used. The sales lady of course said "Oh the builders will fix those issues before the next crew comes in"

If I ever buy a new house, you can bet I will be there for framing, dry walling and finishing. So many shortcuts can be taken before that drywall is hung.
 
The next crew she was referring to could have been the drywall crew who could careless about the split 2x4s and do you think the drywall crew would challenge the  state of the cracked 2x4s and bring this up to the right authorities by risking their job. They are there for only 2 days and would they delay their job for 1/2 a day and wait for the 2x4 replacement and missed their favorite show telemundo at 6 pm in Santa Ana.
 
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