Welcome to Inspection News. I'm a regular reader here, and I hope I'll be learning a great deal from your comments.

My first question: from the HVAC tech's perspective, how should a HI write a recommendation for an annual inspection to insure that all safety concerns are addressed?

For example, here in Chicago it's not uncommon for HIs to find obvious venting issues (rusted thorough, sections not properly connected, vent loose at the connection to the chimney, damper inoperative, etc.) on a furnace on boiler with several years of "yearly service" (sometimes by more than one company) noted on the service tag.

I very much doubt all these techs were incompetent or careless - it looks to me like they just did not consider inspection of the vent piping within the scope of their "annual inspection". (And it may not have helped that the homeowner or management company was probably looking for the lowest price for the work).

As a HI I don't like to write a recommendation for an inspection that may not correct (or at least identify) such problems, but I also don't want to find myself in the position of telling HVAC techs (who generally know more than I do about the system) "how to do their job" - especially if it's not completely clear what I'm recommending.

So what I'm looking for is some boiler-plate comprehensive enough so that the inspection will cover the system from the union on the gas line to the vent's connection to the chimney, written in "HAVC-techease" so that it's clear what I'm recommending, and in a style that more likely to elicit cooperation than annoyance.

So I'm wondering, if you were trying to explain to a HVAC tech just starting on the job what such an inspection should include, how would you put it?